


A Thousand Faces

by wallyflower



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-07-13 10:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16016111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallyflower/pseuds/wallyflower
Summary: Some time after the second wizarding war, there is a man living in Grimmauld Place: a complete stranger who is somehow familiar. A love story.





	1. Chapter 1

Hermione was in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place when she first met Max Helter. She was caught unawares, one hand on an empty glass and another on a milk carton, when he was first brought in crashing through the kitchen door, one arm slung around Arthur Weasley’s shoulders. He was a fine specimen of a man with ash-blond hair and broad shoulders, and Hermione caught herself swaying for a moment, disoriented by something familiar in those half-asleep black eyes; but surely he was a stranger, and he had never met her before, because she would have remembered.

Mr Weasley, followed by George, laid the unknown man on the kitchen table; one of the man’s arms hung over the side, unnoticed by his companions. All three men were soaked with rain and mud and their cloaks made puddles on the floor that Hermione, Ginny and Mrs Weasley had cleaned only that morning. Hermione’s eyes were fixed on the man, whose eyes fell shut the moment his head hit the table. 

“Quick, Dad!” George was saying. “We have to seal that gash in his leg first. That’s the biggest one; we’ll deal with the rest after that.” 

Hermione, milk carton abandoned, watched as George and Mr Weasley cut the thick fabric of the man’s trousers. She was unable to help herself from blurting out, “Wait! We need to dry him off first, then clean off the mud. And then do a few _Antisepsis_ spells—we don’t want him to get infected—”

For the first time since barging in through the door, the two men seemed to notice her presence in the kitchen. Mr Weasley favored her with a warm, if harried smile, and George said hastily, “Oh, gods, you’re right. Do you want to help? I haven’t really been practicing my spells lately, and I was never—I mean Fred was—I mean healing spells have never been my strong suit.” 

Hermione was already rolling up the sleeves of her dressing gown. The summer before—the summer before what was supposed to be their seventh year at Hogwarts—Hermione had read up on healing spells, practicing them on anything from bananas to unsuspecting rabbits in Ottery St Catchpole. She struggled to remember the things she had taught herself; she reminded herself of the reality and gravity of the situation for there was a pulse here, a real man of flesh and flowing bood, smelling of wet grass. First to clean, and then to resuscitate and to heal. That was it. Steady on. 

When she was finished with her new patient—when the blond man was dry and when the gash had been sealed, and a weary George and Arthur Weasley had fallen asleep with heads cradled on top of folded arms on the Grimmauld kitchen table—when the sun had come up to illuminate the drying stains on the floor and the healed products of Hermione’s labors—the patient himself blinked his eyes open, supported himself on his elbows, and gave Hermione a warm smile of gratitude, sweet and guileless. In hindsight, she supposed it all went downhill from there. 

***

There was nothing subtle about Hermione’s probing the next day; but then as Professor Snape, her old Potions master and known murderer of Albus Dumbledore, had said cuttingly to her once, subtlety had never been one of her strengths. She questioned Molly Weasley quite openly about the strange man who had come to stay at Grimmauld Place, but Molly was distracted upon finding the newly cleaned floor a mess, her husband gone again (The family clock said “you just missed him”) and Hermione wide-awake and running on adrenaline. 

“Yes, yes,” Hermione was saying when Ginny came down to breakfast. “But what’s his name? And why haven’t we seen him before?”

“What’s this about?” Ginny looked ill-prepared for interesting conversation in the morning. Her hair was nearly as wild as Hermione’s own, and her clothes were rumpled as though she had slept in them. Hermione supposed that she had, since part of the Burrow had been burn to the ground only a few weeks previously, and among the possessions destroyed had been most of Ginny’s clothes. 

“A man was brought here before sunrise; I saw your dad and George come in while I was getting a glass of milk, and they were half-carrying him, and we had to heal his wounds—they were magical, and ghastly.” Ginny didn’t seem to really be paying attention but Hermione went on. “Apart from me and Harry and your brothers, I’ve never seen anyone brought in here who wasn’t an Order member, so I have to assume—”

“Yes, of course, Hermione, he’s a member of the Order.” Molly took a seat beside her daughter. She sounded tired. Her spoon banged against the walls of her teacup and Hermione waited expectantly for her to elaborate. “One of the old crowd. He’s a few years younger than me and your father,” she added, glancing at Ginny, who was looking sullenly at her piece of toast. 

“So he was at Hogwarts?” Hermione’s mind was working quickly. She would have given her beaded bag at the moment to be able to peer into Hogwarts library and its collection of school annuals. 

“He used to teach in Hogwarts if I remember right. Herbology or something or other. We didn’t go to school with him; he went to Durmstrang but Dumbledore recruited him to teach a few years later. Long before your or the twins’ time; I think Percy might have taken a few of his classes.” Molly gave Hermione a sharp, penetrating look. “Is there a reason you’re so curious about Max, Hermione?” 

“Max! Max who?”

“Max Helter.”

“So that’s his name.” 

“Yes. I expect, Hermione dear, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the old crowd these days. Since this business with Lucius Malfoy being Kissed—” and Hermione admired the way the older woman kept her face neutral at these words—“and all of his sympathizers causing trouble… Hunting us down like animals! So if you could, maybe, try…”

“What Mum’s trying to say,” Ginny interrupted her mother testily, “is that you should be a little less obvious about the fact that you don’t trust Order members you haven’t met before.” 

Hermione had been about to ask something else—had been about to ask, is he married? Does he have children?—but she restrained herself, instead thanking Mrs Weasley and passing Ginny the pumpkin juice. She realized then that her curiosity about the man had been taken as distrust, and she was at turns disturbed and relieved by it; for it had not been distrust at all, but the beginnings of fascination. 

***

After feigning disinterest for a whole day, she found him asleep in one of the bedrooms on the third floor, close to George Weasley’s. George himself was sitting in a chair outside the room, fast asleep; the door next to him was ajar, and Hermione, containing her excitement, whispered a charm to silence the creaking door as she opened it. 

Max Helter was lying on a bed close to the grimy window, the gray light illuminating the book lying open on his stomach. It was not unreasonable to be curious about Max, as Hermione had taken to calling him in her mind; she had found something intimate in the healing of his wounds, and there was also a curious attractiveness in that pale face, as well as an air of mystery as to his origins. He had the looks of a wizard in his late forties or early fifties—someone who had once been athletic, but whose life had taken a more sedentary turn. Hermione could not deny that the angle of the jaw, the intensity of gaze, and the straight nose made for a very handsome face, and that this handsomeness was part of the reason that she was so drawn to him. 

Thrilled to find that he had been reading a book, she moved closer to him with the intention of taking the book and closing it properly, as well as peeking at the title. The moment her hands touched the cover, however, her wrists were enclosed in a grip strong enough for bruises to bloom on the skin under his hands. 

Hermione gave a small squeal, and the book dropped to the ground, unheeded and its pages creasing. Max Helter was fixing her with a penetrating, almost angry stare, and it reminded her that he was fully adult, fully powerful and completely a stranger to her. 

“Miss Granger,” he said curtly. “Are you so pressed for reading materials that you must take mine for your own?” 

Hermione was about to splutter a defense, when she caught in his eyes—wonder of wonders—a hint of amusement. The thin mouth was curled upwards slightly. Despite herself she smiled widely. 

“I wasn’t trying to steal it, sir,” she heard herself saying, adding the honorific almost unconsciously. I’m talking too fast again, she told herself, but was unable to stop. “I just passed by this hallway, and I saw George, and I peeked in, and I saw that you fell asleep with your book lying wide open, and I thought it could get damaged, and I remember how my mum always said to take care of books, and their spines, because breaking the spine of a book is like—”

“—breaking the spine of a friend,” Max Helter finished for her, and he gave a mirthless laugh. “Yes, and of course I should know.”

Hermione regarded him for a moment, the smile arrested on her face. He seemed to recover almost immediately, however, and wandlessly summoned the book before handing it to Hermione. “Here,” he said. “Since you are so intent on taking away a man’s only source of entertainment, you may have it.” 

“I suppose it must be very boring for you around here,” she said, taking the book and looking at the title. It was a bound collection of journals from the Cheverell Institute of Magic. She felt suddenly very young and untutored, for she had only read casually through the (admittedly lacking) collection of magical journals in Hogwarts library. She felt sure that she would be able to understand the articles therein, but unsure about offering an expert opinion. How she would have liked to ably discuss scholarly things, she thought distractedly, with another person of an intellectual bent. 

“Molly Weasley won’t let me out of bed. I think she might be related to Poppy Pomfrey.”

“You know Madame Pomfrey too!” Hermione hugged the book to her chest. It was so intimate, exchanging words in a darkened room with only the gray sky outside for an audience. “Oh, that’s right, Mrs Weasley said you used to teach at Hogwarts. Didn’t you teach Herbology? I mean, I only ask because this journal doesn’t really publish articles on herbology, doesn’t it usually deal with…” she trailed off at the look on his face—again a curious mix of mock exasperation and amusement. 

“Yes, the Institute teaches Potions, Transfiguration and Charms,” he said. He appraised her, sitting up against the banked pillows and regarding her with the beginnings of a smile. “I’ve heard many things about you, Miss Granger, and it appears I’ve received a fairly correct impression. Do you have any interest in studying in the Institute?” 

“Oh, yes.” Be adult, Hermione, she told herself. You are not talking to Lavender or Parvati, so there is no need to gush. Pretend he’s Professor Snape and be levelheaded. “I finished at Hogwarts this year, and I’ve submitted my application because I think their Potions program sounds excellent. But it requires a two-year apprenticeship with one of their Professors beforehand, and I’m just not sure…” At this she trailed off. It was difficult to conceive of a future beyond these next months, these next days. 

These days—almost a year after the final confrontation with Voldemort, and with Hogwarts only half-restored—Hermione often stopped herself from thinking about her future. Her plans began and ended with these days in Grimmauld place, hiding from Voldemort’s and Lucius Malfoy’s anonymous sympathizers who had burnt down the Burrow and almost burnt down the Granger house only weeks ago. 

Max’s voice—or perhaps she should have been calling him Professor Helter—interrupted her thoughts. “I’m sure you would be a credit to any field, Miss Granger. Potions, then?” he added casually. 

“Oh, well, sometimes I think about it,” she said with a shake of the head. “I’m nowhere near good enough.” 

“Why would you say that? Are you not top of your year?”

“It isn’t that. I can follow Potions instructors as well as the next person.” Or perhaps better, but there was no need to mention this. “But looking at Professor Snape’s improvised notes—he was our Potions teacher, you must know him—I think the field calls for a lot more innovation and natural talent than I’ve got.” 

“Professor Snape.” Max said the words without venom; his face was devoid of expression, and Hermione looked away. She thought of how the name of Dumbledore was like a whisper in the house, hiding in all of the rooms and in the creaking of the doorways; how every single person present—whether Harry and Ron hiding out in their rooms and sulking or reading, or Ginny and Molly talking softly over tea in the kitchen—felt the loss of the man with a genuine, impotent grief. 

In Hermione’s sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry had stood in a tower and watched Professor Snape kill Professor Dumbledore, beloved headmaster and father-figure to Harry and Hermione herself. She thought fleetingly of how she would never see those eyes again—never be able to sit across him in the Headmaster’s office to tell him something. Never be offered a lemon drop again. It was an attack of grief and Hermione closed her mind against it, for every time she thought of Severus Snape as anything but her teacher—every time she had sat down and tried to puzzle out how a good man could look into those blue eyes and whisper the Avada—she felt that she might never recover from the unhappiness. 

Severus Snape’s trial was going on in absentia while he was missing and presumed dead, and as the courts turned over the facts and fought to arrive at a consensus of Snape’s character, so Hermione’s heart and mind were also at war regarding the man. She didn’t know whether to grieve for the man whose death she believed she had witnessed—she had watched the blood soaking into the floorboards of the Shrieking shack, all those months ago—or to be glad that she would never have to face him again.

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. She knew a moment of relief—the grief and consuming bewilderment had passed, and she could look at the man on the bed again. Hermione focused on the feeling of the book in her hands—its solidity, its weight. She remembered that she’d been enjoying herself moments ago, and that the weight of this mysterious man’s stare on her, as well as the obvious intellect behind the voice and the eyes, had been novel and even thrilling. She moved closer to the bed and offered him the book, but he waved a hand dismissively.

“You may take it,” he said lightly. “I find myself growing weary of reading journals. Very stimulating, to be sure, but hardly the stuff for a relaxing recovery.” 

She hugged the book to her chest. A book borrowed—the excuse to talk again—perhaps the start of more… Choosing her words carefully, she said in as casual a manner as she could muster, “I could try to bring you something else, if you’d like.” 

A slow, appreciative smile, showing genuine gratitude. “If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient for you.” 

“Not at all,” she said hastily. “I’d be glad to bring you something, either from my own trunk or from the library here. Do you like any particular genre?” 

“I’m sure to enjoy whatever you bring me,” he said promptly, and Hermione felt herself blush to the roots of her hair. She had never been charmed before—never been flattered so smoothly—and she felt naïve and unprepared. “I would, however, prefer something from your library. I’ve met Sirius Black and his family, and I highly doubt they could harbor anything in this house that would interest me.” 

***

She agreed, and he agreed, and that had been that—or so it should have been. Perhaps it should have ended with her giving him a stack of books and leaving him to his devices, allowing him to recover in the privacy of the upstairs rooms while she forgot about him and directed her energies to finishing her summer homework, to revising, to researching spells that could come in handy in the near future, to spending time with her mourning friends. 

Hermione, however, had never been much good at ignoring challenges. Partly it had begun as a challenge to herself—to see if she could hold and keep the interest of a man twice her age and maybe with a greater intellect than her own. She had wanted to be interesting and to be wanted, and it had been a more selfish motive than she would have admitted to anyone else. It wasn’t long, however, before she would find herself in the middle of one of their interactions and realize that there was no selfishness in the way she looked at him, and he at her. 

***

Harry looked tired. A week after Max Helter’s arrival, Hermione found Harry slumped over the kitchen table and picking at the left-overs that Molly had kept under a warming charm for him. 

“Hey,” she said, and he acknowledged her with a half-wave. She seated herself across him, putting down her book. “Did you just come from the Ministry?” 

He nodded, eyes still fixed on his corned beef. “It was a horrible morning. It’s bound to be over soon now, though, thank God.” 

“How’s the trial going?” 

“I think they’re leaning towards some sort of amnesty. Examining those memories Snape left me took a lot longer than I thought it would—they had to check for even the slightest manipulation or alteration—but thankfully they didn’t find anything. There’s a couple of people on the Wizengamot who just won’t stand down though. I wish they’d give it up. Snape’s not a danger to them now anyway, and he did more than enough for us during the past few years that honoring his memory would be the least they could do—”

“Oh Harry, is this still about the portrait?” 

“Of course it’s about the portrait. All I want is for him is to have a portrait in Hogwarts, same as any other Headmaster. He protected the students as much as he could while he was there. It stands to reason!” 

“I’m not sure I agree with you entirely about that, but go on; why won’t they agree to the portrait?” 

“It turns out those Headmaster portraits are really expensive and they can’t get the Hogwarts board to agree to the expense; I even offered to pay out of my own pocket but they told me it was a matter of _principle_. But even worse than that, they say they can’t put up a portrait of someone they weren’t sure was dead.” 

She exhaled in frustration. “What on earth? We both saw him die. I wish we hadn’t, but we did, and didn’t we already give up our memories to be examined? What more proof do they need?” 

“A body would be a good start. The Presumption of Death rule says he won’t be presumed dead if we don’t have a body, at least until four years have passed.” 

Harry was still picking at his food. She looked at him worriedly. She supposed she had been neglecting her friends a little. She had once mothered Harry so closely that she had been after him to eat every meal, and would even prompt him to take showers when he neglected them, which advice he took with more grace than Ron ever would have. She took his hand across the table, and Harry looked at her and smiled wanly. 

“You don’t think he’s alive somewhere, do you, Harry?” she asked. 

He shuddered. “God, I hope not. At first I was so sorry that he was dead, I would have given up anything to be able to go back in time to undo those last minutes that we saw him alive.” 

Hermione felt her face flush. “I—I actually tried to.” 

Harry looked at her sharply, then laughed, a sharp barking noise. “Wh-what? How? When?” 

“Only a few times,” she said hastily. “Soon after it was all over. In all the confusion I looked through the library to read a bit on the consequences of altering a timeline that way. I was fairly sure no one but us had been around to watch him die, so if no one had, then our memories would be the only thing tying that event, in its strictest details, to reality. I did a few arithmantic calculations, and I found that there was a small possibility I could save him if I just went back when his body had already been abandoned and administered an antidote to the anticoagulant venom. I knew I only needed about three minutes, but Professor McGonagall wouldn’t let me have my old Time-Turner, and I couldn’t find a working one in what was left from the Fiendfyre…” 

They were silent for a few moments, before Harry shrugged and began eating with a bit more gusto. Hermione smiled. “I guess it’s for the best. He—he lived a very useful life. I wouldn’t want him to come back to the Wizarding world as it is now anyway.” 

Hermione nodded, sobering. Furthermore, in a classic act of hypocrisy as only the Ministry could manage, the authorities had already taken possession of Snape’s few belongings and estate, even though they refused to presume him dead so that Harry could get the Headmaster’s portrait he so wanted. With most of Hogwarts in ruins and his possessions taken away, even if he were alive somewhere, Severus Snape would have nothing to come back to. 

Harry continued, “I wish the trial would be over so Mr Weasley wouldn’t have to spend so much time thinking about it and taking me. He’s got the Burrow to worry about rebuilding, and those rogue Death-Eaters won’t catch themselves.” 

“I thought the Aurors were handling it?” 

“I thought that too, but Mr Weasley said something to me this week about calling on some older members of the Order of the Phoenix for help tracking them down, or at least for help in protecting us. He told me you’ve met Max?” 

The thrill of hearing the name mentioned made Hermione smile; thankfully Harry missed it. “I was here when he came in. Was he one of the old crowd they called in?” 

“He was living in the Hebrides I think when Mr Weasley asked for help. The night before he came here, he was in a pub gathering information about Lucius Malfoy’s supporters.” 

“Oh gods. That’s probably how he got wounded. I never got around to asking.” She hadn’t; she had been too curious about other things.

“It was. Unfortunately before he could suss out more, one of the would-be Death-Eaters got suspicious and tried to cut him—good thing he got away. Too bad Max couldn’t get more information though. Since the attacks, including the ones on the Burrow and on your old house, looked very organized, it made sense that at least one group of people would be behind the plotting and doing, probably a close friend of Lucius Malfoy’s or someone in their inner circle.” 

“I had hoped they had caught them all. It's likely someone on the fringes made it out, though. Poor Mr Weasley! He’s had no rest.” 

“Or George. I wonder when it will be safe to rebuild the Burrow,” Harry said while chewing; this didn’t bother Hermione as much as it had before.

“I wonder when it will be safe to even go out,” she said. “We can’t even go into Diagon Alley, and I still get worried every time you and Mr Weasley go into the Ministry.” 

“It’s a good thing Grimmauld at least is safe. You’re feeling a bit trapped, aren’t you?” She nodded. “Ginny is, too. I wish she’d talk to me about it though.” 

“She won’t talk to me about it either. Do you have any idea why she’s so sullen?” 

He shrugged. He began tidying up his plate and she got up to help him, putting the rest of the leftovers into what passed for an icebox in Grimmauld place. 

“I honestly think,” Hermione ventured, “that she and Ron are just mourning. Neither of them have had any tasks they can devote their energies to for the past few days. I’ve had my books and you’ve had the trial and your campaign for Snape’s portrait, and I suppose Ron and Ginny could amuse themselves too, but then neither of us have lost a brother…” 

Harry nodded, swallowing. “I’m not sure what to do for Ron.” 

Hermione tried to smile, squeezing Harry’s arm as they made their way upstairs. “He’ll be all right,” she said reassuringly. “Once Hogwarts is up and running, and Ginny will be able to go back to school, she’ll be all right, too.” 

Harry looked at her, pausing on the stair. “And you? Are you all right?” 

She squeezed his hand. “Never better.” 

***

In some ways she _had_ never been better. Her education had been put on hold, her parents were far away, her childhood home had been partly burned down by Lucius Malfoy’s sympathizers and she feared that two of her closest friends would never be the same, but for the first time in her life she was able to be useful in small domestic ways rather than to plan how she and the boys would survive to see the next sunrise; she was able to sleep in and to read whatever interested her and to give serious thought about her future, and to be grateful for whatever had been spared them. Every day a new Lucius Malfoy lackey—Death-Eaters in all but name and lacking only the tattoo—was caught and put safely behind bars, and soon she was optimistic that life would soon slow down and be as normal as it could be. 

And then there was Max. 

It was weeks since they had first met and he had started walking again, and had even left the house twice—she gathered for some mission or other, since he came back taciturn and looking a little jaded, though thankfully unhurt, each time. She didn’t press him for the specifics of what he was doing, and tried not to verbalize her concern for the times that he left the house when she suspected his leg hadn’t fully recovered. Still he was there in his room in the late afternoons, resting, and she was still able to come by, to give him books and to talk softly, and it was the happiest she could remember being in some time. 

Long after she and Max began to exchange books—for he had been hiding a small stack of books under the bed, all of them dry and intellectual—and mere days after his second mission outside of Grimmauld Place, Hermione looked up from her book in the Black library as the door slammed open and shut. 

She was sitting in an alcove by the fireplace, hidden by a tall shelf of haphazardly-organized references. Through the gaps in the books she could see Max in a flurry of futile activity, pacing before the door and shaking his head, his hands combing through the ash-blond hair again and again. The sight of him always made her feel heady with anticipation—anticipation of the things he would say, of the looks he would give her, of the potential that hung in the air whenever they were alone in his room. Apart from that first surreal meeting in the kitchen, this was the first instance that she had seen him outside of his rooms, and she marveled at the look of him even as she wondered at his obvious distress. He was very graceful. 

“Sir? I mean—Max?” she called out hesitantly, standing up, and he whirled around, wand brandished. Stunned—and thinking distractedly that there was something about that defensive stance that was remarkably familiar—she moved so that the shelf would not cover her, and raised her hands in supplication. “Don’t shoot,” she said, almost dryly. It was the kind of humor he had infected her with. 

He lowered his wand, but Max seemed not to relax in the least. He turned away from her and rubbed his eyes. 

Cautiously, she came closer. What would he say? Would he turn her away and rebuke her for her familiarity, now that he was no longer in the sickbed and was not dependent on her for company and amusement? Absurd thoughts buzzed through her mind as she crept closer, before putting a hand on his shoulder. 

“Is there something wrong?” she whispered. From downstairs she could hear the music coming from one of the big drawing rooms—the noise she had been escaping from—and even coming from such a distance it was louder than anything in this room, louder even than Max Helter’s ragged breathing. 

He didn’t move away from her hand on his shoulder, and for that she was grateful. She had never touched him before, and her fingers memorized every minute detail of the cloth of his robe, the rhythm of the breathing beneath her hand. Slowly he turned around and she dropped her hand, feeling suddenly that she had overstepped her boundaries. 

“Lucius Malfoy is in Azkaban,” he said, in a voice as devoid of feeling as any she had ever heard. 

“Yes,” she said, slowly. “That’s why most of the Order are celebrating downstairs. He’s to be Kissed next week.” 

He walked past her, unsteadily, closer to the fireplace. She hoped it would bring him some measure of comfort, though for the life of her she couldn’t understand why he should be in such apparent agony. She moved to stand in front of him, keeping her distance. 

“Did you know him?” she said quietly. 

A pause. “Yes,” he said, not meeting her eyes. He bent, putting his elbows on his knees and his forehead into the cradle of his palms. “Yes. We were friends. When we were younger.” 

Hermione could muster no sympathy for Lucius Malfoy, although part of her wondered, with a sort of wistfulness, about what this would do to Narcissa Malfoy and her son. She sensed that to stay quiet would be the best course of action, choosing instead to sit on a nearby couch. She was inexpressibly grateful when he moved to sit next to her, though he remained absorbed in thought. She had returned to her book and was about to turn a page when he surprised her. 

“I understand that you were once held hostage in the Malfoy estate,” he began hesitantly. 

“I—yes,” she said, flushing. She shut the book closed. In a moment she would stand up—in a moment she would leave, but not so quickly that he would think it was his fault. She was simply not prepared to talk about those memories, even if he was the one person who had consumed most of her thoughts for the last weeks. No one was privy to that part of her heart. 

“I don’t know what to say to you,” he went on, seeming to pick his words carefully. “I want to apologize for appearing to be in mourning for a man you must have despised, but I also feel that it is not my place to say so. I shouldn’t have said anything, I suppose, but I—I would be grateful if you wouldn’t go.” 

How he had read her thoughts she couldn’t guess, but at the same time she was flattered by his request for her to stay, and so she chose to remain seated. She turned to him and tried to smile. “Would you like to hear about something interesting I’d been planning, then?” she asked. 

“Always,” he said, with a smile that caught her off guard. 

“I’ve actually got a present for you,” she said. Silly goose! She had hoped to draw it out a bit longer.

“A present! Is it a book for the invalid?” 

“That’s just the thing—it isn’t a book, but I’d hoped to have it before you were up and walking again. It was supposed to keep you company in that awful room. Do you want to see it?” 

Curiously he followed her to the alcove where she had been reading, and she scooped to pick up the pot that had arrived for her that morning. It contained a variant of Atropa belladona that she had read about it once of his journals; being a unique variant, it had been cultured with the specific purpose of being particularly decorative, but a Potions group in Russia had discovered that where other Atropa were poisonous, this variant yielded a chemical that had significant promise in knitting together torn muscle. She had thought the variant might interest him and had guessed correctly that Neville Longbottom, whose fascination with Herbology had led him to make connections in various parts of the world, had not only known of the plant’s existence but would be able to send her a cutting. 

She handed it to him, but Max was looking at her even as he accepted the plant, his face full of wonder. “Where did you get this?” 

“I asked a classmate of mine for a cutting. It’s terribly pretty, isn’t it? Too bad you’re no longer an invalid; if you think it’ll just end up neglected in your room, tell me now so I can take it.” 

“Not a chance,” he said, laughing, and he swung the plant away from her grasp. “I’d already owled Professor Sprout in Hogwarts to ask her for one of these, but she hasn’t sent me a reply. I—thank you for the gift.” 

She wondered if her face looked as flushed as she felt. “No problem. Don’t think too poorly of Professor Sprout; they’re still rebuilding the charms around Hogwarts and there are only five professors there. I suppose they must be busy and tired most of the time.” 

He nodded. “I should like to see Hogwarts again, surprisingly. I—what I mean to say is, I didn’t have my best years there, but now I feel a strange longing to come help in its rebuilding.” 

“Maybe when you’ve recovered a bit more,” she said, feeling warm and reveling in the familiarity they shared, that she could say that sort of thing to him. He was still looking at the plant. Look at me, look at me. “What do you mean you didn’t have your best years there?” 

He looked at her sharply then, and he looked away before answering, “Only that I started there as a very young professor. I was one of the youngest the school had ever employed and I was… never able to feel that they respected me. It grew intolerable over time. I was never able to shake the feeling that the other professors couldn’t respect me, too.”

She frowned. Why would that be? He was handsome and intelligent, was clearly well-read in his field and had the most beautiful manners. He wondered how he would have gotten along with Professor Snape. It had never occurred to her before to wonder how Snape had ever gotten along with his fellow teachers; the most she had known was that he and Professor McGonagall had engaged in sportsmanlike bets during Quidditch season, and she’d often thought that Professor Flitwick had once seemed fond of him, calling him “My boy” in conversation. Oh, Snape again, Snape again filling her thoughts, thoughts of his death and his wasted life pressing on the present and the future. She sucked in a breath and tried to remember what Max had been saying; but now he too seemed lost in thought, staring at the petals of the Atropa. 

In their silence the music from downstairs seemed suddenly loud. For the first time in days Ron had come out of his rooms, and Ginny with him, and Mr Weasley had put on some old records they’d found in Sirius’ room. Some of the other Order members had come over for dinner and they were probably drinking and talking downstairs, the atmosphere uncharacteristically light as they celebrated this one small victory—Lucius Malfoy’s transfer to Azkaban and the sentence of his Kissing, as well as the capture of what Arthur Weasley suspected was the last of the sympathizers. 

Hermione had been grateful that she didn’t have to be present for Malfoy’s trial, and had wished heartily that the man would end up with a fate far worse than the Kiss; he was responsible for many of the nightmares that haunted both Ginny’s and Hermione’s dreams. Still, she looked at the sadness around Max’s eyes—those familiar eyes, those oddly compelling eyes. (Did they remind her somehow of Harry’s eyes? Was that it?) She spared a moment to think of Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, and how they were feeling this night. 

The music now was a sad waltz; the three-quarter beats sang and accompanied the scraping of chairs, and Hermione guessed that some of the Order had probably started dancing, in the way that some celebrations degenerate into tipsy choreography. Before she could help herself, she blurted out, “Would you like to dance?” 

He looked at her as if she had grown a tail. “I beg your pardon?” 

Her ears were probably a tomato red. “We don’t have to. Forget I asked. It was only that I liked the music. It’s a little mournful but still the sort of thing you can dance to, if you move a bit slowly. Never mind, I—”

But he was already putting the Atropa on a table, appearing to recover from his surprise. “No, I wouldn’t dream of refusing you. Forgive me. I’ve already kept you from the celebrations downstairs. At least let’s have one dance, and let me thank you for your gift.” As he took her hands, he again surprised her by saying, “I might not be very good at this—I haven’t done it very often.” 

“I’ll try to be good enough for the both of us,” she said with more daring than she felt, and he laughed; and for the duration of the (slightly clumsy) waltz she was caught in that odd medium between happy and wistful, lost in the unfamiliar closeness of someone’s body and the smell of his aftershave, and yet unable to keep thinking of Lucius Malfoy, and Draco and Narcissa, and Ginny and Ron and everyone who was mourning, and Professor Snape, whom she had often admired and sometimes loathed. 

When the dance was over she hoped that Max would kiss her—it was the sort of thing that happened in her books and the movies she had seen—but he had pressed her hands and stepped away, thanking her warmly for her present; he was out of the door before the waltz’s last notes had faded. 

***

The next day, she didn’t have the time to ponder happily and longingly over the dance of the night before. As soon as she had come downstairs to help Mrs Weasley prepare lunch, she was arrested by shouts coming from the kitchen. She ran all the way there and was stopped in her tracks by the sight of Harry curled up on the floor in a puddle of blood. 

It was the stuff of her nightmares. For a moment she swayed on her feet and she hated herself for it; this had happened so many times before, and she had already learned self-control and the quick cool determination that had allowed her to survive the past year; was it possible she had unlearned them? Harry whom she loved most in the world; Harry in a pool of his own blood, a gash on his back, screaming in pain. She should have known it wasn’t over. Strong hands caught her as she tried to steady herself against a chair; it was Max, and once she was steadily on her feet again he released her and crouched next to Harry. She noticed distractedly that Max seemed to wince a bit as he did so. 

Ron was standing beside Harry and babbling, looking wildly between Mr and Weasley’s pale faces as he tried to explain. “There were three of them—and we knew we were outnumbered, and we tried to run, but Harry dropped the cloak—”

“Boy!” Max bellowed, in a voice Hermione had never heard him use before, and Ron’s stuttering explanations skidded to a halt. Mrs Weasley, also crouched over Harry, had started crying, and Mr Weasley had transfigured towels to press to Harry’s back to stop the bleeding. Hermione still stood uselessly where she was, somehow instinctively trusting that Max would have things under control, even when she didn’t. Ron looked at him. He probably had never seen Max before, and was caught in slack-jawed surprise. 

“Ronald,” Max said, more quietly this time, “I need to know what happened, and quickly. Here, Arthur, give me one of those towels—I’ll help you. Before we can heal the wound we need to know what happened. You said you ran into trouble?” 

“It was my fault,” Ron said automatically. His freckles stood out in contrast to the rest of him. Hermione thought how grown-up he seemed in that moment, confessing to his own foolishness. “I told Harry I couldn’t stand to be in the house for another day, so I convinced him to Apparate to with me to Hogsmeade. Just for a lark, for some chocolate maybe, since probably all of the troublemakers had been caught and it was probably safe; but while we were leaving we heard someone laugh about how the Ministry was celebrating prematurely and it sounded suspicious and nasty so Harry and I got under the Cloak and tried to follow them. It was three people—about our age, probably students, one girl and two boys—and the girl was saying how her parents wouldn’t stand by and watch Lucius Malfoy get Kissed, and there was still a way to get him out. 

“And then I think the cloak had slipped a bit or they might have heard us following them, I can’t tell which, but before we knew it spells were flying at us. We weren’t prepared so we tried to run but Harry dropped the Invisibility Cloak and ran to get it back, and one of his shields slipped and a curse caught him on the back. Hermione, I don’t know what it is, does it look familiar to you? The edges are so jagged, and it won’t stop bleeding—”

Hermione, who had been staring at him, open mouthed and aghast at their lack of foresight, knelt beside Harry. No amount of compression would stop the bleeding. She thought of Nagini’s venom and how Snape’s blood had looked exactly like this, briskly bleeding in a way that only a magically created wound could make it run. There weren’t even any big arteries superficially on the back, and yet Harry was losing a lot of blood. 

Max was already scooping him up. Mrs Weasley and Hermione scrambled to their feet. Harry had lost so much weight that he hung from Max’s arms like a rag doll, face scrunched in pain. 

“Hogwarts, do you think?” Arthur said urgently. His hands were covered in blood. 

“I can only trust Poppy for this,” Max replied. “Better not to risk St Mungo’s, and it’s not something I can handle on my own. I haven’t got the potions and the curse feels unfamiliar.” 

“Is it Dark?” 

“It feels like it. Will you go with me?” 

Arthur, shaking his head, seemed composed and alert; and Hermione was reminded of why, in Dumbledore’s and Snape’s absences and with Kingsley’s appointment to the Ministry, he had taken charge. “I need to find Kingsley and I need to find out who those children were. If you think that you and Poppy can handle this then I need to go with Ron to find out as much as we can, both about the caster of this curse and whatever her parents are planning. If it worsens and we need St Mungo’s, send me a Patronus.”

He was interrupted by Harry, who opened his eyes and called, in a strangled voice, for Hermione. His glasses hung off his face; Hermione took and pocketed them, and recovering herself, said to Max, “I’ll go with you.” 

***

In her third year, Harry had played a Quidditch match in the rain, wet and half-blind in his glasses; she had called out to him and spelled his glasses dry with an Impervius. She had known even then that Harry, bright and clever and brave as he was, would need her for a very long time still; in a world where not all of the adults could be trusted she had made it her goal to keep Harry safe, leaning on herself where she had been unable to lean on others. She had learned to use her mind to their advantage, gathering spells and information that might be unnecessary, but might—some way, some how—be just the thing that Harry needed, as he had needed her Impervius. And yet Harry had needed not only her cleverness, but her love, too; and she had no solutions to offer now, half-jogging with Max Helter to the entrance hall of Hogwarts, but Harry needed her even when there was nothing she could do for him. She felt that Max understood this, and was grateful that he said nothing. 

She was inexpressibly grateful to see Poppy Pomfrey in the infirmary, though the latter dropped a vial she had been holding the moment she saw Max and Hermione in the doorway. “Hermione Granger! And—Max? Is that you? What’s happened to Mr Potter?” 

Max seemed stiff and uncomfortable, but Hermione was too worried to give it much thought. They had laid Harry on the nearest bed and already the sheets were bloody. “Poppy,” Max said in greeting. “I’m sorry to trouble you. I’ve been staying with the Weasleys and their boy and Mr Potter ran into a few students in Hogsmeade. This wound on the back is spell-inflicted, and we can’t stop the bleeding, and I can’t stitch it closed—the muscle refuses to knit together and the blood refuses to coagulate. Is there any way we could get our hands on Fawkes?” 

And so it went; as Madam Pomfrey called on Professor McGonagall for help and Max Helter went in search of Fawkes, phoenix tears and Professor Snape’s potions, Hermione did as she had always done and stayed with Harry. It was all right now; they were not in the Forest of Dean and she did not have to be the one to manage every scrape; Madam Pomfrey knew better than she did; Hermione could trust them with Harry. It would be all right. 

***

Two days later it was Ginny who met them at the door. Hermione had almost forgotten how Ginny looked when her face was animated with emotion; for the past months she had hardly seemed to smile or frown, and the most that Hermione saw of her was during meals when she looked blankly at her plate and answered curtly when spoken to. Now Ginny, pale but freshly showered and alive, helped Harry limp across the threshold and squeezed Hermione’s arm in welcome. 

All words of happy reunion were drowned by Ron clattering down the stairs, already starting on his apologies long before his feet met the bottom step. Harry, slightly bewildered at the attention, laughed as Ron continued to say, “It was my fault mate, I’m so sorry, and we wanted to visit you but Dad said we had to stay put where it was safest while they rounded up the last of the troublemakers and it’s really the last of them this time or so they hope, and we wanted to get you chocolate frogs but Mum would have cut off my foot if I attempted to step into Hogsmeade again—”

Ginny cut off her brother, turning to look at Max. “I’m sorry, are you Professor Helter?” 

Hermione felt immediately that she herself had taken liberties by calling Max by his first name in her head, and was instantly ashamed; he had never expressly given permission but she had taken it. As Max nodded, uncharacteristically quiet in the face of Ginny’s curiosity and Ron’s enthusiastic apologies. 

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Weasley. You don’t need to call me that, however. Max will do. I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet before; I have mostly been recovering upstairs and taking my meals there.” He inclined his head toward Ron. “Mr Weasley. Your friend is recovering very well, but if you don't mind me saying so, I’m glad you can see the consequences of your actions. I hope you’ll be more careful.” 

She had never seen Ron more servile or respectful in front of a teacher. He was nodding, taking Harry’s arm from Ginny’s so he could support the weight. “It won’t happen again, sir, I promise,” he said, and Harry was laughing; and during the pause in the conversation, as Max was turning to go, Ron blurted out, “Did you really teach in Hogwarts? Do you remember teaching my brother Percy?” 

Hermione, watching them from the threshold—Ginny’s relief at having Harry home again, Ron alive and animated and more himself; Harry awake and walking, Max being welcomed by her friends—could only think: _never better_. 

***

It had taken three of Professor Snape’s potions to heal Harry’s back, and an unholy amount of Phoenix tears; Hermione had sat through it all, and was grateful to be by Harry’s side the whole time, but she was glad to be away from Hogwarts where memories of happier times lay around every corner. Grimmauld Place might have been dark and desperately gloomy where Hogwarts was light and welcoming, but here she was able to retreat into her books again, having been prompted by Harry’s injury into thinking more about Healing. She spoke to Max about it, asking for his opinion on which institutes offered the better programs. He had only shaken his head. 

“I would advise you to give it more thought,” he said. “I do not belittle your interest in Healing or question its origins; I only want to caution you against making this decision based on a need which may no longer exist. If you’ll permit me to say so, Hermione,” he added more gently, “we are no longer at war, and you are free to learn whatever you wish. You are not bound to be Harry Potter’s healer forever.” 

She had tried not to be angry with him for this little speech, feeling that she hadn’t yet earned the right to be so familiar, but she couldn’t help it; she felt that he had shot her down when she had only been exploring her options. For the next few days she didn’t visit him, and she had been only half-expecting it when he sought her out in the library to offer an apology of sorts. 

“I thought you would be here,” he said, looking into the alcove. She was reminded at this moment of how handsome he was; how strong and dignified he looked, even when stooping to apologize to an eighteen year old who felt she wasn’t being taken seriously. She said nothing and he sighed and sat across from her. Worse and worse—her silence made her seem even more petulant. 

From the pocket of his robe—for he wore robes at home except when he was sitting up in his room and resting his healing leg—he produced two pamphlets. He gave them to her and she knew before taking them that they would be pamphlets on training programs for Healers. 

“I owled Professor McGonagall for these,” he said quietly. When she said nothing still, afraid to make a bigger fool of herself, he said, “I know that you are the most intelligent student I have ever met. I have even heard you called the brightest witch of your age. When I think of what you have done for Mr Potter and for the rest of the Order, and at your age, it leaves me almost breathless with admiration. I know that you will be a credit to whichever field you choose. It was not my place to tell you which to choose, nor to withhold information which might help you in the choosing. It’s just—it is only--”

“Max,” she said, finally able to speak, “it’s all right, I shouldn’t have—” but he continued. 

“I have spent most of my life fighting for one side or another, and everything about my choices—my academic career, where I lived, what I did with my time—has been dictated and affected by conflict. I have made all of my decisions with the hope that one day,” and here he met her eye and surprised her by taking her hand—“one day we would be able to raise a new generation who would have all of the options that we never had. I only want you to know that those options are yours now, Hermione, and if you were robbed of them before—if you were robbed of the childhood that you should have had in Hogwarts where you should have been warm and well-cared for and your greatest concern should have been your marks and not Harry Potter’s life—those choices are yours again now, and the wizarding world and all of its varied fields of knowledge are yours for the taking.” 

She had no idea why, but she felt like he was apologizing for so much more than one remark. She realized then how much of a stranger he still was; how much of a life he had lived that she not witnessed. She had forgiven him the moment he came into the room, and smiled at him with all of the sweetness she could muster, even as he seemed suddenly to realize that he was still holding on to her hand; he stood immediately, letting her go, and ran his fingers through his hair. 

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For the pamphlets, and for understanding. I only want to ask—was it so obvious? That I had thought of Healing because of Harry?” 

“You can’t imagine how obvious,” he said. “You listened raptly to every word Poppy and I exchanged in the Infirmary. I know that if you could have taken my wand and said the spells, you would have done so yourself. I should probably take a moment to tell you that I think you have done a remarkable job healing his injuries over the years. That little scar on his arm—was that your doing?” 

“It was,” she preened a little. “It took a bit of practice. I hope you never see Ron’s little scars though—I always did a terrible job with the stitching of them, he’d never stay put.” 

He smiled at her then. She wondered why a face that was so clearly made for smiling was so often stern, even when his voice was warm, and he wondered if a hard life made you that way, made smiling a rare and cherished event. As he moved to leave he said, “I will also confess one thing; I had secretly harbored hopes that you would major in Potions. You say you lack innovation, but innovation is a product of a deeper knowledge of what is already existing and lacking in the field; I am certain that if you do choose to take up my field, you would be pleasantly surprised by the things you could do.” 

It wasn’t until later that night that she shot up in bed, warm from his praise, when she remembered that his field was Herbology.


	2. Chapter 2

Life at Grimmauld place settled back into a pattern of sorts, broken only by the news of Severus Snape's pardon.

It was all over the papers and Ginny, Ron, and Hermione were lying on their stomachs in Ginny's bed, reading over each other's shoulders. The _Daily Prophet_ had thoughtfully printed the entirety of Kingsley Shacklebolt's statement about the amnesty, and included details about the particulars of Dumbledore's death. The _Quibbler_ had even better coverage about the war crimes for which Snape had been pardoned, and the article dared to suggest the awards and compensation to which he might be entitled, including a Headmaster's portrait at Hogwarts. Harry had left early in the morning to see Professor McGonagall and to persuade her to let him speak to the board of Governors.

"It's like a personal mission with him now," Ginny said wonderingly.

"I'm glad of it," Hermione said. "It makes him less antsy to have something to do, and I think he feels really terribly about his mum and Snape."

"Did he ever show you the memories?" Ron said, with the tone of someone who had been wanting to ask a question for a long time. "He never showed me."

"I don't think Harry would dare," she said. "Professor Snape was such a private man." And Harry hadn't, but he had spoken regretfully about the way Snape had loved Lily Potter and described Snape's beautiful Patronus. Hermione wondered what it would be liked, to be loved as Lily had been by such a man, and to never really know it. She figured Harry thought the portrait was the least he could do.

"But what's a pardon for?" Ginny asked, turning a page. "It's not like he can take advantage of it. Isn't he presumed dead?"

"Not yet," said Hermione. "It takes four years according to what Harry heard from the trial. Wizarding Law still makes no sense to me so I took his word for it."

"I guess it means he can be awarded things. Posthumously, like. And his will can be executed, can't it?" Ron had already turned to the _Quibbler_ 's last page and was answering the crossword.

"I wonder if he left those jars with the floating animals in them to anyone," Ginny said, and she and Ron giggled; Hermione couldn't even try. It would take a long time, she believed, before she could laugh about Professor Snape. Thankfully Ginny and Ron said nothing more, and even Max was reticent on the subject.

It wasn't long before the news of Harry's campaign for Headmaster Snape's portrait made the news, and Grimmauld Place was beset with Howlers that Hermione threw into the fireplace before Harry could see. She knew that there were still people out there who hated Professor Snape, and even though the abuse made her angry—the sheer unfairness of it all—she was hard pressed to blame them. She knew the facts about the man, and had some idea now of what he had gone through, both in his unhappy youth and the last years of his life, scrambling about protecting children he neither liked nor wanted to teach; and if she couldn't quite bring herself to forgive Professor Snape entirely for killing Professor Dumbledore—she who had all the facts and had watched the life drain from Snape's eyes—how could she blame anyone else?

She did keep one letter, though; it was from Luna, and after the usual pleasantries it asked simply,

_Did you like our article about Professor Snape's pardon? I was thinking about you, and how you were so clever about him all of these years; you never said a word against him and it was your trust of him that made me more and more sure that he was on our side. Would you consider helping me writing an article about him, Hermione? We don't want to bring up more than we have to about his history, and the role he played in Harry's parents' death, and I thought you could help me pick through the facts. It might help a lot of people make up their minds about him, and it might help Harry, too._

_Yours,_

_Luna_

It was four a. m. after a sleepless night when Hermione sent her a Patronus that said only _yes._

***

The day that Lucius Malfoy was to be kissed, Max was nowhere to be found.

Thankfully there were no celebrations, and even Ron seemed to feel the gravity of the event; he was as quiet as the rest them, only listening while the wizarding wireless gave its account.

She walked past Max's room—once at breakfast, again at lunch and sometime after supper—and looked only at the _Atropa belladona_ , well-cared for in its spot by the bed.

***

Harry's back had appeared to be healing nicely, which was why Hermione felt a stab of alarm when he said that it still hurt to move about; he was feeling particularly unwell the day after Malfoy was Kissed, and asked if she could write a note to Professor McGonagall to explain that he wouldn't make it to Hogwarts that day, since sending only a Patronus would be bordering on disrespectful. After she sent off the note, she looked at Harry closely and thought that he still wasn't gaining weight. Harry wasn't feverish and the wound was closed but he was still pale and sickly, and even sitting up made him tired.

She stayed in his room to keep a closer watch on him, worry settling like a lead weight in her stomach even as she settled her own affairs, writing letters in the comfort of Harry's desk.

She had, after much thought and without bringing up the subject with Max again, decided on a two-year apprenticeship with Horace Slughorn, who was scheduled to be back in Hogwarts for the coming year. Hogwarts' rebuilding was progressing nicely and Professor Flitwick, who was in charge of the wards, surmised that repairs would be done in two months, and it would be safe to welcome students again well before the new year. The buildings and staircases—all that had been damaged in the last conflict—had all been repaired.

Hermione had her own misgivings on settling on a field which was not her best—she had always been at her best in Charms and Transfiguration after all—but secretly still harbored a hope of becoming a Healer, and all of the Healer programs required two years worth of training either in Potions or in Transfiguration, and couldn't see the harm in choosing Potions.

As the shadows lengthened towards evening she sent off a letter to Professor Slughorn and one to Professor McGonagall, confirming that she would be leaving for Hogwarts in two days, so that she could settle in, help in organizing the Potions stores, and if they would permit her, assist in rebuilding the wards. She tried not to think about her worries about leaving Harry behind; if anything happened, Max would surely know what to do, and Hogwarts infirmary was just an apparition away, wasn't it?

While in search of the Weasley's new owl, she ran across Max himself as he made his way up the staircase. His face was twisted in pain as he limped over the last step and she looked up at his face in worry.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "The leg has been giving me a bit of trouble. It's perfectly mobile but it twinges a bit."

She frowned. "I know your leg has been hurting you, but are you hurt anywhere else? I thought I could see you wince once while you were stooping…"

"I'm fine," he said again, his tone clipped. Hermione decided to drop the subject, and remembered suddenly that she had something to give him. "I'll be right back—could you wait for me here?" she said, grasping his arm.

"If you don't mind, I'd much rather wait in my room," he said, sounding tired.

"All right. I'll see you there," she said, and it was the work of a moment to pop into her bedroom downstairs and fish out the box of chocolates she had ordered from Honeydukes. She had thought to give it to him yesterday, when she anticipated he would be feeling morose over Lucius Malfoy's sentence, but hadn't seen him the entire day. She knew perfectly well that chocolates wouldn't solve anything, but these had been infused with a Calming draught, which gave one a sense of well-being that she found comforting on the very worst days.

She knocked at his bedroom door and it swung open, probably from wandless magic. He was sitting up in his bed, his legs stretched out in front of him and under the blankets even though he was fully dressed. She came closer and tried not to look too expectant and giddy as she presented him with the box, taking the liberty of sitting on the very edge of his bed.

"This was for yesterday," she said quietly. "I was looking for you. I know he was your friend, and—" She was interrupted when, without warning or thought, Max shoved the box out of the way, grasped her upper arms and kissed her.

It seemed totally unplanned. The angle wasn't quite right and the initial impact too forceful, but in a moment, one small shift of his mouth later, it _was_ right. His hands loosened about her arms and he held her gently, and she felt in his kiss something of the coiled tension of a spring—something kept in check and controlled and not quite fully unleashed, and somehow his control made her even giddier and the kiss even sweeter; he was so very careful, and his thumb caressed the fabric of her sleeves while his mouth moved over hers, and she kept her eyes closed, feeling cherished and warm. So he had thought about it too. He wondered if he had ever fantasized about it the way she had. She kissed him back, as sweetly as she could manage, but the moment she tried to put her hand up on his chest—partly so she could touch him, partly to steady herself for she had grown dizzy—he retreated. Their lips made a wet sound as they parted, and the silence in the room was all but roaring in her ears.

The look on his face was something that would keep her awake for many nights. His eyes looked wild, as if he were stunned at the boldness of his own actions, but there was also fear. What did he have to be afraid of?

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she whispered, almost hurt. She hadn't wanted to say the words aloud but he was still looking at her, and the way his eyes darted over her face, as though he were waiting for words of rebuke or rejection, made her eyes water.

"I—I'm not certain," he said, swallowing. "I've done that so many times before, in my mind, and each time you end up running from the room."

"Why would you say that?" she pressed, wondering if she was able to sound as perplexed as she felt. "You—you _must_ know how I feel about you, or you must have had some sort of inkling. I made every excuse to see you for the past few months, and I had—I _had_ hoped—"

But he had risen from the bed, and limped to the dresser, as far away from her as possible. He braced his arms about himself, reminding her of what she thought might be a self-comforting gesture, something she had seen on someone else a long time ago…

"I should know better than this, Hermione," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I've taken advantage of the situation."

"But _how_?" Why wouldn't he tell her what she wanted to know? What did he think was so wrong with himself? "How could you think _you_ have taken advantage? Is it—my age? Am I too young?"

That seemed to stop him from descending further into the storm of self-recrimination she could see burning in his eyes. He looked at her then, fully, infusing his words with all of the sincerity he appeared to muster. "Hermione," he said slowly, "you are not _too_ anything. There is nothing wrong with you." He shook his head. "There are things you don't know, Hermione, and I—"

Harry chose this moment to call for Hermione.

"Hermione! Please, come here!"

She froze in place. Something in Max's expression seemed to slide into place and she knew for certain that he had been afraid of _her_ ; that he had looked at her like a boy afraid of getting his heart broken. But how could that be? Of the two of them it was she who had thought she was more likely to be rejected, given her age and her inexperience, not to mention the hundred things she thought was wrong with her appearance. Had he thought that she was in love with Harry? The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, and yet the way he looked at her now, expecting her to go thoughtlessly to answer Harry's call, suggested that he had been afraid of that very thing.

She stood unsteadily, and tried not to run out of the room, as he had feared she would. She walked to him and tried to look at him as an equal would, levelheaded and calm, even though her thoughts were spiralling in all directions.

"Harry is still ill," she said slowly. "I need to go to him now, but Max—whatever it is you say I don't know, I hope you will at least consider that I am in the best position to know my own feelings, so if that's the only thing stopping you…" she wasn't certain what to say next.

"You will hate me," he said in a whisper.

"How could I hate you?" she burst out, bewildered.

Harry called again, sounding more frantic this time.

They both jumped.

"I think he might need to go to the infirmary again," she whispered.

"Would you like me to accompany you there?"

"You couldn't possibly. I saw how much pain you were in earlier. Please stay here and rest and I'll go get Mr Weasley." She stayed in place, torn between wanting to see to Harry and wanting to make sure Max didn't flee from the room the moment her back was turned; he had that air about him, of a bird about to take flight. She fixed the sight of him in her mind. He breathed as though he had been running, and she knew for sure that he had been as affected as she had been; that the sweetness of their kiss had mattered not only to her but to him, too, and that these past few months she had not been the only one aware of the possibilities between them; and she longed to say these things, to tell him that her fascination had grown into the beginnings of love. And yet she had no time to say them, nor the appropriate words at her disposal, so she stood on tiptoe and kissed him instead, briefly.

"I don't know how long we'll be at St Mungo's," she said, "But I'll try to be back as soon as I can, and may we talk when I'm back?"

"You need to go," he said instead, closing his eyes.

"Please," she said urgently.

He looked at her. "I'll know where to find you."

***

She had planned to pack for Hogwarts for the remaining two days before her promised arrival for her apprenticeship. Seeing Harry vomiting into a bucket, as Ginny shot her a reproachful look, put an end to all of those plans, and before she knew it all of the contents of her room had been shrunk and shoved haphazardly into her beaded bag, and she and Mr Weasley were on their way to Hogwarts.

She heard nothing from Max for the next two days, and though unbelievably hurt by it, she convinced herself that her energies were put to better use taking care of Harry. The wound had superficially healed, according to the mediwitch, but an infection had set in deep inside, and Hermione hoped that it was nothing more sinister than that. Even as she unpacked and discussed her syllabi with Professor Slughorn, who was happy to receive her but distracted by the labors of restoring the wards in the storage rooms, Hermione spent most of her time with Harry.

This was not to say that she hadn't thought of Max. At the worst moments she imagined she felt on her lips the pressure of his own, and remembered so clearly the hitching breath he took when she kissed him back. She had wanted him to press her firmly against his own pillows; she had wanted to kiss him far longer than he had. But more important than any physical intimacy, she felt the loss of the man keenly; there was hardly a day that she hadn't passed by his room to talk or to ask about his leg, and he had become a comforting presence at the end of the day, at turns challenging and gentle. When she had been stagnating, thinking that one day was much like another and losing all hope and motivation in planning for her educational future, he had encouraged her to think and helped her to believe that the Wizarding world could be wonderful for her again. How could she not want him?

***

The routine of doing the Potions storeroom inventory, reinstalling old wards and falling asleep beside Harry's infirmary bed was broken by the news that the Burrow had been rebuilt. It had been the main focus of George Weasley's energies for the past two months, and he had worked with both Molly and Arthur to make sure that Ottery St Catchpole would be a safe place to come back to. Hermione cared little for the rebuilding of her own childhood home—it was unlikely that she or her parents would ever live there again—but she was happy that the Weasleys could begin to resume something of their old life. She had a note from Ron inviting her to come over, and a slightly subdued one from Ginny who told Hermione that she could have her own room in the new Burrow, and wouldn't she like to decorate it? It was quick work to ask for permission from Professor Slughorn—it was after all a weekend—and she found herself in the Burrow at last.

It looked much like it used to, if slightly more spacious and less likely to topple over. Old Wellingtons greeted her from beside the door, and the she could hear the chickens clucking in the distance. The front door was open. The family clock was in the living room, and she felt a rush of affection at seeing that she and Harry had their own hands. (Harry's read, "Hogwarts"; hers read "home", while Ron and George's hands were pointing to "Quidditch"; and none of the hands were pointing to "Mortal peril.") She could hear Molly singing from somewhere in the garden. She saw Ron and George through the window, their forms appearing and disappearing in between the high trees of the orchard behind the Weasley home. At the sound of a foot on the stair, Hermione turned to see Ginny, who ushered her into the kitchen.

Ginny looked well. She seemed to be wearing new clothes, and Molly appeared to have cut her hair; the fringe that had been growing too long was well-kempt again, and Ginny looked more and more like the girl she had envied for being so popular and so pretty back in Hogwarts. She was busy making tea and telling Hermione about the difficulties George was having in securing permits for his business, now that it was safe to get it started up again.

"I think Ron wants to help with the shop, but I'm not sure George wants to let him," she said, setting down their teacups.

"Why not? That doesn't sound like him."

"It isn't that he doesn't want Ron around. I think he just wants to make sure Ron keeps his options open, instead of hiding in the family shop. Ron doesn't seem very motivated about the future, you know…"

Hermione thought of herself and the desultory way she had been planning for post graduate studies. "I don't know if you'll believe this, but I can understand how he feels."

"Do you? Maybe you can talk to him. At least you're getting started on your Healer career. How's it going with Slughorn?"

Hermione shrugged. "I'm not sure yet. Sometimes it feels like we'll never be done sorting through the mess in the dungeons and we'll never be able to get started on my actual curriculum. I've only just found out that Professor Slughorn signed me up to teach first year classes! Only the ones on basic Potions technique and safety, but I'm not sure that's a standard part of a Potions apprenticeship…"

Somewhere in the house a door slammed shut, and Mrs Weasley came into the kitchen, not looking surprised to see Hermione there. Hermione was enveloped into a warm embrace and gestured for Molly to sit down so she could be given tea, but Molly stayed where she was, standing by the doorway, looking at both girls with an unreadable expression and a nervous smile.

"I'm glad you're here, Hermione," she said. "And you too, Ginny. I don't believe that there's an easy way to say this, but… I suppose you'll find out soon enough…"

Hermione could say nothing; her mouth was dry. The clock had _said_ that none of them were in mortal peril, hadn't it? What could be so horrible that Molly would look at them like that, pale and at a loss for words?

Molly was wringing her hands. "Well, Hermione dear, I suppose I should just come out and say it. Someone's here to see you. You'll find him in the living room…"

Hermione's heart felt like it had first fallen into her stomach, and then tried to soar beyond her ribcage. Max! It could only be Max. She gave Molly a brilliant smile and ran past her into the living room, her heartbeat loud in her own ears. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of a dark figure in the living room, his back to her. But then she would have recognized that dark figure anywhere, for she saw him in her dreams almost every night.

The hooked nose was the same; the limp, oily hair had been cut very much shorter, and today he appeared to have made an effort to slick it back tidily. The curling lips were fixed into a grim line. He was still wearing a cloak but his robes were not the teaching robes she had always seen him wear. He turned to look at her, face blank, and said nothing at first, as though trying to read her expression before venturing on any of his own.

"Hermione," he said finally, and she couldn't help it—she winced. The last words she had ever heard him say were _Look at me._ She heard it every night. The voice was the same. But she had never been _Hermione_ before; she had always been Miss Granger, had always been Know-it-all and Insufferable.

"Professor Snape," she said. Thoughts flew about in her mind like the birds she had conjured to attack Ron after she had caught him with Lavender; they went in every direction and filled her head with so much noise that she wondered how it was that she was still standing there silent when her mind was in chaos. She couldn't settle on a single feeling. Was it to be relief that he had survived after all, and appeared alive and well? Was it her chance now to apologize for leaving him behind in the Shrieking Shack when she could have tried harder to save him? Could she weep with the happiness that he could now stop haunting her dreams since he was safe? Could she finally ask him the question that she had long wanted to ask: _how could you?_

At her words he seemed to flinch, and then to recover himself, turning to face her more fully. He took one step closer, and did not dare to advance more; Hermione thought that she probably looked like she would run from the room. Her mind was working more quickly now. Why would he ask for her in particular? Why not ask for her and Ginny at the same time—why not call for Ron and George as well? Had Molly known this entire time? It hadn't occurred to Hermione to ask herself if he could be trusted, if she was safe here alone with him, but she wondered about everything else. Where had he been hiding? How had he lived? Had he only emerged now because of the news of his pardon?

"I hope you're well," he said slowly, and more formally this time. He stood before her with his back straight and his arms folded over one another. Why was that stance so familiar… and there was that gesture he had of rubbing with one hand the sleeve of the other one…

"I'm very glad to see you're alive," she finally mustered, because it was true. "Harry will be pleased as well."

He nodded. "I've gone to see him. I'm not sure how much of me he saw. He appears to be under some form of sedation."

"It helps him sleep; otherwise he fidgets and Madam Pomfrey can't get him to lie quietly." She crossed her arms about herself, mirroring his stance, and waited for things—for _him_ —to make sense.

"How are you," he said, and it took her a moment to register. She blinked.

"I—I beg your pardon?"

He flushed suddenly, and she had never thought that Severus Snape could ever look embarrassed.

"Forgive me," he said quickly. "It is only—I've heard from my—colleagues that you have decided on a Potions apprenticeship in Hogwarts. It appears I must congratulate you."

Could he really be here? Was Severus Snape—loyal but wildly unpleasant, the one Professor who had never heaped her with praise, the man who had looked at her and said _I see no difference_ —really here, making polite and stilted conversation with her, asking about her academic career? She could say nothing.

Suddenly she wanted him to leave; she wanted to be by herself, to crawl back into her room at Hogwarts so she could lie down and think about what it meant that he was alive. What was the next intelligent step? Was there something required of her? Did he want an apology? Did he want to apologize? She could hardly care at the moment, and it was her desire to be alone then that pushed her to ask finally, "Was there something you needed?"

He hadn't taken his eyes off her, and she was so uncomfortable that she found herself looking away and at the floor, feeling self-conscious in her Muggle jeans and large sweater. He seemed to make up his mind then, and moved closer to her; too quickly for her to be able to do anything but step back, almost tripping over her own feet. He caught her arm before she could fall, and on instinct she shrugged it off, aghast both at him and at herself. He was looking at her, as if siezed by some great emotion, before he pulled something out from his robes—a box—

-A _Honeydukes box—_

Her mind seemed to shut down for a moment; and it was on the tip of her tongue to say, "What have you done with Max?!" But the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place too quickly for that, and it took less than a second to jump to the correct conclusion. His familiar eyes—that self-comforting gesture, that mistake he made while talking to her about Potions… the way he had said to Ron, _boy!_ And how Ron had obeyed instantly, as if confused… calling her the brightest witch of her age—and who in "the Hebrides" would have ever spoken to him about her except for Albus Dumbledore? Fighting for "one side or another"… living a life dictated by conflict… words and words and words flit back and forth across her consciousness, before it could come to her finally—

The strong grasp on her arm, and a kiss, short but cherished, in a dark room.

Max looking at her the way Severus Snape looked at her now, afraid, certain of rejection.

In a moment she had gone; the front door of the Burrow swung on its hinges behind her, and she could hear only the faint sound of a strangled _Hermione!_ before Apparition took her away.


	3. Chapter 3

Into the fire they went—the pamphlets he had rustled up for her from Minerva McGonagall; the letters she had drafted to him in the middle of the night when, unable to sleep, she had tried tell him by wandlight that she hoped he would come to call on her. A remote part of her was glad that she hadn't had any of his books to hand, because she would have burnt those too, and with gusto.

How foolish. How _childish._ What a cliché she must have appeared to him—a bookish girl who, trapped in a lonely house, fell for her the first good-looking man who came knocking.

And he had not been a good-looking man. Underneath it all he was Severus Snape, whose sallow skin and crooked nose haunted her nightmares. She had often lectured Ron on how it was what inside that mattered, but for Severus Snape, the inside had been much worse than the outside as far as she could tell. She had tried, over the past year—on the days when she could not forget the things she wanted to forget the most—to synthesize her feelings for the man; like an academic, she had tried to come up with a rational conclusion, one solid opinion on him and the things he had done, but even in the face of Harry's enthusiasm she had found it impossible. Her esteem for him fell away now, giving way like Lyonesse, floodwaters rushing in through the gates of everything she had admired about him.

He might have been impressively brilliant, but he was still the man who had murdered Albus Dumbledore. In the classroom he had been childishly tyrannical and verbally abusive and a large part of her blamed him for the irrecoverable bruises on her self-esteem. She could have presented him with a list of his offences to her and she felt certain he could not have come up with a justification for any of them, however heroic Harry could sometimes paint him out to be.

The biggest offence of all haunted her—the sight and sound and smell and feel of it. The way her eyes had fallen closed and she had let herself…

Oh, for a Pensieve.

Oh, for a Memory Charm.

How could he have done it?

***

Though she missed his company, in the aftermath of what happened Hermione was grateful that Harry was on very strong pain medication. One tincture that Poppy dispensed every night made sure he was sound asleep not five minutes later. They were never administered without his consent, however, and two days after she decided that she would forget about Max Helter entirely, she found him sitting up in bed, waiting for her.

She dreaded the things he would have to say.

He looked no better than he did when he was first brought in and his ill health gave him a serious, wan look. His pyjamas were wrinkled and his hair needed a combing-through. He was smiling when she came to sit beside him, though, and took her hand. She had trained him in that, she realized. She had trained him to become used to physical affection. She realized then that he was the only person in the world she could ever tell about what happened. And she didn't even want to.

"Hey," he said. His voice was hoarse, probably from hours of disuse. She smiled.

"Have you eaten dinner?"

He nodded, and paused. She could see him try to piece together the things he wanted to say, picking words as if out of a hat, and she knew that he must know more than he let on.

"Snape came to see me," Harry said finally.

She could only nod.

"Did he… did he come to find you?" he said haltingly.

"Yes," she said, more stiffly than she'd intended to.

"Oh." He was still holding her hand and he ran his thumb across the back of it now, as if to soothe her. She resisted the urge to jerk away and smiled half-heartedly.

He took a deep breath as if to say something, but it seemed that all he could manage was, "Sorry."

She knew that her affection for the person who had been Max Helter had probably not been obvious to anyone but Harry—Harry who knew her habits and her preferences, Harry who noticed things but never said a word about them. He may not have known about the kiss in the dark but perhaps he suspected even more. She would later wonder about her response, but at the moment it had seemed like the best thing to do—to dispel any notions he might have had about her past or present involvement with the man.

"About what?" she made a derisive, snorting sound. "I'm only glad I didn't lend him more books than I did."

Harry's eyes widened. "Hermione, I—"

"I know you think he's a hero," she rushed in. "I don't disagree. But it would mean a lot to me, Harry, if you didn't make your case about him in front of me. I am not the Wizengamot."

He had always known when to be silent in the face of her anger. "All right," was all he said, and she left soon after.

/ \ / \ / \

Soon she wrote Luna Lovegood a letter.

"Dear Luna," it began, "About that offer you wrote me about some time back: I'm afraid I will have to decline…"

***

Professor Slughorn was surprised by the amount of enthusiasm with which Hermione attacked the syllabus for the first-years. As she had told Ginny, she thought that the task of teaching the first-years had less to do with the standard Potions apprenticeship curriculum than it did with Slughorn's tendency to make other people do his work for him. Still, she would have given anything to occupy her mind and keep her from thinking about Max Helter.

Or Severus Snape.

Who had not contacted her in two weeks.

But what did she care? She never wanted to see him again.

The loss of someone she had thought of as an intimate companion—who could not yet occupy a place in her heart the way Harry or Ron had, but who had captivated her mind and her humor with what she had felt was an amazing compatibility—could not grieve her now. Through her tasks of helping to reinstall old Hogwarts Castle wards and running errands as a Potions Apprentice, she ran on anger, falling asleep at night either in the library or beside a drugged Harry Potter in the infirmary. And in the bleak Scotland mornings when she felt she had nothing to wake up for, she stirred up the very worst memories and ran on her anger again. It seemed to her an infinite source of energy and she wanted only to take advantage of it.

All of this took place within a nagging background of worry for Harry's state. His back had healed externally but the pain remained, and he seemed to the Healers suspended in a state of a generalized inflammatory reaction—as though he were in a state of sepsis but with no infection to show for it. They never spoke about it to her and any attempt at questioning Madame Sprout yielded nothing—not, she was assured, because they were intent on keeping things secret, but because they were clueless.

Arthur Weasley and Minerva McGonagall had asked help from the curse-breakers, since the initial wound had been spell-inflicted and could be something Dark that no one had seen before. The Healers were adamant that it could be healed with the correct potion. Harry remained both a diagnostic and therapeutic dilemma, and it drove Hermione crazy with worry.

Ginny was no better. Asked to remain in the Burrow for the meantime, she had no recourse but to send Hermione messages everyday; sometimes with titbits about life with the undecided, stalling Ron, but more often with agitated inquiries about Harry's state. The smallest of things seemed to be of great importance to her, like whether Harry had had dinner the evening before or whether he had tried the healing tincture she and the Lovegoods had sent over. Hermione could tell her nothing new and it strained the relationship between them as well, so she tried to make personal visits arranged by Floo. Once she was able to ask Slughorn for a whole day and a half, and she made arrangements to stay overnight in her new room at the Burrow.

That morning Ginny met her at the Floo with an embrace that belied the strain they had both been under. Ginny had only recently known death, and had never had to deal with the chronic illness of anyone in the family, least of all the boy she loved, and so Hermione tried to look at her with more compassionate eyes.

Sometimes this was hard to do because Ginny was so very beautiful. It struck Hermione at odd moments, like right now when Ginny was brushing soot off of Hermione's sleeve.

"I'm sorry I kept piling you with messages," Ginny said, before taking her bags and talking all the way up the stairs to Hermione's room.

Looking at the girl before her, Hermione thought again that no matter how accomplished she wanted to or could be, Ginny would still always be more beautiful, more desirable; Ginny could have had her pick of anyone were she back at Hogwarts, and even more so once she was an adult in the world at large. She looked a little like Lily Evans. Hermione wondered what it was that Max Helter had ever found attractive in someone like Hermione Granger—Hermione Granger the know-it-all, who had an upturned nose and a weak chin, and whose hair resembled the chicken wire in the Burrow's backyard. But that was all moot now. Perhaps he had never found her attractive. Perhaps she had been simply there. Had it been a ploy to see if he could make someone like him if he looked anything different from his true self? How disgusting.

Ginny was oblivious to all of this. She banished Hermione's clothes to the new closet—painted a pale pink, which Hermione actually liked—and sat with her, asking about her syllabus and the castle repairs.

Hermione wondered why she had never told Ginny about what she had thought of as a budding romance with Max. Had she thought of Ginny as competition? Or had it simply been that Ginny had been too mercurial for their entire "incarceration" at Grimmauld Place? She was glad now that she had said nothing; she was aware of how torrid it would look now to Ginny, who would not have had to scrape the barrel with someone like Professor Snape.

On that topic, Ginny seemed to think of Snape as Harry was inclined to think of him—heroic and misunderstood, in a nutshell—though she was also inclined to look at Harry's lobbying at the Ministry to be a pointless if well-meaning initiative. (Now that Severus Snape was known to be alive and well and in no need of a Headmaster's portrait, the target of Harry's half-asleep tirades tended to be on the subject of getting Snape his estate back.) Hermione could never tell her any bit of what happened. She could never say that anger was the only thing keeping her standing, and the only thing that kept her from breaking down with worry at Harry's bedside.

***

Then it happened.

The next morning, after she had said made her farewells to Ginny and Ron and George and Molly and Arthur, she chose to go into Hogsmeade—a move Arthur grudgingly allowed since the Aurors thought that the troublemaker Death-eaters had all been captured, and the last of them had scattered in the wake of Lucius Malfoy's Kissing. She decided to pick up some ingredients that Slughorn had been meaning to get from the apothecary. She also secretly felt that she was in need of a grooming, looking as she had for the whole evening at Ginny's perfectly shorn head; Ginny had decided some time ago that cutting her hair to chin length would be both convenient and prettifying, and she was right.

Hermione railed at herself for the comparisons she made with Ginny. Comparison, after all, was the thief of joy. But she could not deny that part of her wanted to be made into a new person entirely—a person who would not make the foolish decision of falling for someone so entirely inappropriate, who would not be so generally undesirable that she felt she had to set her cap on the first attractive man who walked by. And if a haircut would help—if it would make her appear in some way closer to someone like Ginny—then what was the harm in it?

Was this the way other women felt after terminating their liaisons? It was a sickening thought. It had _not_ been a liaison. Silly goose. Silly Hermione. It had never been anything but a ruse.

Hermione went into a hairdresser's and emerged a half-hour later, with hair half its original length and uncertain about how she liked it. Still, the deed was done. She looked nothing like Ginny.

All thoughts of beauty and comparisons skidded to a halt when she approached the castle and saw the outline of her master at the front steps. She half-ran to him then because he looked like he was waiting for her.

She had never liked Horace Slughorn particularly while they were in school—the Slug Club dinners were memories fraught with tension and disappointment—but a part of her had chosen to grant him the affection and respect she reserved for those who had taken up arms against the Dark Lord in those last difficult hours. As a Potions Master enjoying the respite before the return of his Slytherins, he might not have challenged her in any real way yet; so far she had been tasked with inventories and the minor matter of the first years' curriculum, both of which she had finished before her departure for the Burrow. She had no doubt, however, that he would be equal to the task of challenging her, once pushed. After all, he was brilliant enough to recognize it in others; and he had been trusted by Dumbledore, and had taught Severus Snape.

Snape, Snape again, intruding on her memories. Thankfully Professor Slughorn, resplendent in the old-fashioned clothes he favored (this evening a smoking jacket with gold buttons), waddled to meet her at the bottom of the steps and she could stow away those thoughts again. She was pleased that he seemed to have something to tell her; perhaps, finally, she would have something to keep her hands (and her mind) occupied.

"Good afternoon, Master," she said, and as she expected he waved away the title, inviting her once again to call him by his first name. "What brings you to the edge of the castle, sir?"

"Is that a new haircut? It suits you very well indeed, my girl. Now I see you've been to the apothecary and thank you, but would you do me the favor of stowing away your purchases for the moment? We have something to discuss."

"Yes, of course." She followed his portly figure up the steps. The moment she recognized that she had been mindlessly staring at the back of his shiny pate, she realized he had been speaking.

"…that I haven't given you much by way of coursework or theoreticals, but you'll get there in time. Best to get small things sorted and out of the way after all. Now you've finished the inventories and have done a fine job of restoring some of the wards in the dungeons. I've yet to finish reading through your curriculum for the first-years and the suggestions you've made for the second-years, but I've no doubt those will all be excellent as usual. I had thought of assigning you an apprentice-level Healing potion to finish—"

Excitement bubbled up within her. "That would be _marvellous—"_

"—but I've found you something else to do. Something that I think we'll agree is more useful and more urgent."

Even before he finished the sentence, Hermione felt it: the drop that was like her stomach turning into a ball of lead and falling to her feet. She had thought the intial dread was sickening, but the intensity of it was magnified tenfold as she spotted a black figure moving through the forest towards them, before stopping to look at her, aghast.

"I'm sure you remember Professor Snape, my dear," said Professor Slughorn.


	4. Chapter 4

The fire was warm on her face but her hands couldn't seem to stop shaking, as though cold. If she had to choose a name for the predominant emotion that blazed within her as she sat in front of Professor Slughorn and to the right of Professor Snape, she would have chosen anger; and yet anger seemed not a good enough word for the way she couldn't look in Professor Snape's direction and couldn't say a word in the middle of Professor Slughorn's instructions.

"You'll have to work at the base of the tower, I'm afraid," Slughorn was saying. "We've set up a sort of laboratory at the base of one of the north towers. You might be aware that Professor Snape here had to vacate the dungeons during his time as headmaster, and of course now I'm in his suites. You'll report there every morning at around eight—if that's all right with you, Professor Snape?—and work on your theoretical coursework in the evenings.

"I've already discussed the potion extensively with Professor Snape, though it's only this morning that he's agreed to work with me. I'm afraid the bulk of castle repairs is still my job to oversee, however, so you'll have to do most of the work without me. At the moment the curse-breakers can't make head nor tail of whatever is poisoning Harry Potter from the inside."

"You've mentioned they worked with phoenix tears at one point." It was the first time Professor Snape had spoken since they had left the front steps of the castle and ensconced themselves in Professor Slughorn's office. Hermione kept looking straight ahead at a point behind her master's shoulder.

"It produced a temporary improvement, which was marked by a decrease in pain and increase in overall appetite and well-being. The effect was transient, however. But it might be something to start on. We haven't yet resorted to unicorn blood, but that might be an option worth looking into." Slughorn wiped a hand over tired eyes. "I'll want a report from you, Hermione, by this time next week. In the meantime, she's all yours, Professor Snape." To her horror, he stood and went round the desk to pop into the next room, presumably to call on a house-elf through a portrait.

Silence stretched between Hermione and the person who had been Max Helter.

It was broken, a stretch of eternity later, by a soft "Miss Granger—Hermione—"

"That will do." She darted her eyes at him sideways only for a moment, before she resumed staring at the wall ahead. She had never before spoken so sharply to him—to either of the hims she had met—and in her own ears, her voice sounded foreign. "It's Miss Granger to you, Professor Snape."

Thankfully at that moment, Professor Slughorn returned and dismissed them; walking ahead and not bothering to hide her disgust, Hermione was left to return to her rooms to contemplate what awaited her as Professor Snape's assistant.

I will never speak to him again, she thought. Her footsteps echoed in the hallway—brisk and angry. I will only speak when necessary, and maybe not even then. How dare he throw himself in my path again.

***

It transpired that Professor Snape had been allowed to take his meals in his tower to the north of the castle. Hermione sat down to lunch with both relief that she didn't have to see him and his ugly, brooding face, but disappointment that she had missed another opportunity to show him her contempt. How dare he fix himself in the same castle as she? Common decency, she thought, would have dictated that he move as far away as possible from a girl he had taken advantage of.

But then there was Harry. He was still in and out of sleep, with an unpredictable fever pattern and a steadily dwindling appetite. The worry that had gnawed at her day and night was somewhat assuaged by the fact that she was now allowed to be part of the solution. Had she not kept the boys alive for the last seven years? She would do so again, Professor Snape or no Professor Snape.

Harry seemed cheerful when she next saw him, although she could tell that he had no appetite for the meal he had been given on his tray. "I like your hair," was the first thing he said to her upon her entering, and she almost put a hand to her newly-shorn head but aborted the self-conscious gesture.

"Professor Snape came to see me before dinner," he said. Hermione watched him play with the mashed potatoes.

"He doesn't take dinner with us."

"That's just as well. I suppose Professor McGonagall wanted to spare him the discomfort. He always seemed like he would prefer to be a recluse if people would let him. Anyway, everyone still remembers what it was like when he was Headmaster."

She snorted. She both wanted and didn't want to talk about Professor Snape. She decided to go with, "So what did you talk about?"

"Mostly he wanted to know specific symptoms I had. He's no Healer but he said he's been asked to work on a potion for me. He was very civil."

"He has no right to be anything else." Her hackles seemed perpetually raised. She was ready at any moment to lash out. "You have to tell me if he's ever anything but decent to you, Harry."

Harry stopped playing with his food, looking puzzled. "Why would he be anything else? I think we made our peace, though how that happened when I was half-sedated is still a mystery to me."

I think it has more to do with how he wants to look kind for _my_ sake, she thought, before she quashed the thought as horrendously self-absorbed. She couldn't help it. There was no cheerfulness to be had as long as Professor Snape was in her thoughts. There was also no semblance of truth; a man she thought she had known—a man whose mannerisms and turns of phrase had become, to her, old friends—was a man that she really didn't know after all. She had no way to know what he was thinking, and had no way of knowing if she really wanted to know.

She looked at Harry. Harry whom she loved most in the world; Harry who was familiar, predictable, both angry and sweet. It would be the work of a moment to brush her hand across his forehead or to straighten the wrinkled collar of his pyjamas; she restrained herself only at the last moment. Why couldn't she have loved someone like Harry? But he belonged to Ginny, and always would. Not for Hermione the sweet, uncomplicated, easily expressed love of her peers. She had somehow landed herself in something sordid with a man twice her age and everything that had been good about it—everything that had been charming and fascinating—had become, in the span of moments, something too embarrassing and dark to ever talk about.

Why was everything always about Snape anyway?

"I've been tasked to help figure out a potion for you, Harry," she said tentatively. She did squeeze his hand then—mostly for comfort, but also partly because she couldn't stand to see Harry make another mashed potato tower and flood it with gravy.

"I know," Harry said. "Snape mentioned that. I know that if anyone can do it, it would be the two of you."

It was repulsive to be grouped with him in such a way. She said nothing, and soon bid Harry goodnight.

***

Hermione hadn't expected the labs to look like this. The laboratory at the bottom of what was apparently Snape's exclusive tower was, rather than cold and covered in stone, warm and paneled in beautiful wood. One of the windows was of a beautiful stained glass of a woodland scene. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that, when she wasn't directly looking at the glass, the leaves in the scene would move as though in a breeze, and various fauna would hop across the picture.

Had she been with any master other than Professor Snape—who was standing awkwardly by the door—she would have exclaimed over the beauty of the room, not to mentioned the enchanted window. The laboratory was fitted with most everything a Potions master would need, and the rows of cauldrons gleamed in one corner, obviously cared for. But she could hardly enjoy the place. She refused to feel awkward; _she_ was not the one who had deceived the other; _she_ had nothing to be ashamed of. Let him squirm.

"Please take a seat, Miss Granger," he said. _Hermione_ , he had once called her. He had once held her in his arms. She sat at one of the benches, as far away from him as possible. Apparently aware of her desire for distance, he chose one of the cushioned chairs near the door. He wasn't looking at her directly when he began, business-like, "I have already come up with a few ideas for the base of the potion, and from there we can work systematically to test hypotheses about what and when to add. We are fortunate to have an almost unlimited supply of phoenix tears thanks to Fawkes, and it makes sense that they form the base. Please feel free to tell me any ideas you may have."

She looked at him then, disdainful, quiet. She shrugged. "I can't think of any at the moment." She did in fact have some ideas, such as the importance of testing dittany, but she kept them to herself. She would bring them up at another, more opportune time, or undertake an experiment herself.

He nodded. "Very well." And they began.

He instructed her, but no more than he needed to. They began with a list of ingredients that Snape had listed and thankfully already procured, and so worked quietly. The quiet was oppressive at first, but as Hermione became more absorbed in her task, she could finally take her concentration off the deep, ready anger that simmered beneath the surface and notice things about the room and about her new master that she hadn't noticed before.

He was wearing work robes of the deepest black, such as he had worn when she had first met him (as himself) at the Burrow. As Max she had been used to him wearing waistcoats and trousers. She noticed that he looked worn; wearing Max's face, he had had the appearance of good health, but now, though immaculately groomed, he looked like he hadn't slept for days. She wondered if Polyjuice could fake a look of health. For a moment she felt concern, but it was swiftly replaced with disdain. He was a grown man, for goodness' sake, and there was no longer a war on. If he wanted to flagellate himself by getting no sleep it was no business of hers.

He was so very thin. Max had had broad shoulders and had been beautifully built for his age; she remembered thinking the words "fine specimen" when she first saw him. Severus Snape was whip-thin and always looked like he could benefit from a second helping. And that hooked nose! She felt that shudder of embarrassment again, that she should have fallen for a man so lacking.

They experimented first of all with a base of phoenix tears and a number of other anti-inflammatory ingredients, with the assumption that Harry's illness kept him in a chronic systemic inflammatory state. They had no way of testing for any positive results since they couldn't replicate Harry's unknowable curse, but could at least test safety in animal models, which Professor Snape said they would undertake in the next weeks.

The light behind the enchanted window began to dim and when Hermione looked up at the clock, she was surprised that it was time for dinner. This was, it seemed, one thing that had not changed: she hardly noticed the time passing when she was with Professor Snape.

Around them the rebuilding of Hogwarts was still ongoing, and a bell alerted those scattered around the turrets that it was time to lay down their wands and gather to rest. Professor Snape had excluded himself from those gatherings, and while bottling a sample of their last attempt at a potion, Hermione looked for the words to ask for permission to go to dinner, while not sounding like she was asking for permission.

He beat her to it, of course. "You may go, if you like, Miss Granger. We will start again in the morning." But he made no move to stop his own stirring at his cauldron—timed, precise movements that Hermione envied. She realized then that he would spend the rest of the night alone, perhaps working. It was his fault. He would always be alone. It was not her problem. She excused herself with a curt "I'll go ahead, Professor," and she was gone.

That was not to be the last time she saw him for the night, however. The staff liked to gather for tea near the Headmistress' office after dinner, and after a day of near-silence with a man she abhorred, Hermione decided to take up Professor Slughorn on a long-standing invitation to join them to shake off the oppressive feelings. She was surprised to find Professor Snape already there, deep in quiet conversation with Pomona Sprout.

She was determined to pay him no mind. The secret lay between them like an open wound. She would do her best to act like his presence didn't bother her but chose to sit as far away as possible, near a window and beside Professor McGonagall. The older woman was watching the rest of the room with what looked to Hermione like satisfaction after a hard day's work. They began to talk about curricula and castle repairs. Hermione, who was determined not to listen, nonetheless heard what Snape and Professor Sprout were discussing at the other end of the room. She didn't notice that, despite herself, she had already lent the conversation half an ear.

"They advertised him as half a man and half an elephant," Professor Sprout was saying. "How positively grotesque."

Professor Snape was silent for a moment, before responding with "I suppose 'grotesque' is one way to put it—"

"Oh, I didn't mean his appearance, although this book describes it in almost gruesome detail. I meant the way he was treated. He had to escape from a workhouse you know and decided the best way to make a living was to join a traveling exhibit." There was some silence and then, "Such a pity. He was said to be quite a sensitive man, you know. Wrote poetry and all that."

"Who is this that you're talking about?" Professor Flitwick called from across the room. To her wonder Hermione noticed that Snape appeared to flinch a little at this, as though dismayed that he had been drawn into a conversation with the rest of the room. Her wonder wasn't at Snape's reaction but at the fact that she still knew the movement of his features enough to notice it.

"It's this book I'm reading," Sprout said. "It's a biography about the Elephant Man. I suppose a lot of you have heard of him."

"Poor man. Didn't he go to live at an institution for the blind?" Professor McGonagall contributed from beside Hermione.

"I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know," Sprout said. "Oh don't spoil the ending Minerva, let me find out for myself."

"Isn't this that poor deformed fellow who lived at the London Hospital? Why would he go to an institution for the blind?" Flitwick said.

"It was thought that maybe he could find love with a woman who couldn't see his face," Sprout said, and there was a short silence. Hermione looked at Snape quietly sitting, and to Hermione he looked uncomfortable to be involved in conversation with the whole room. She wondered then why he had bothered to come. As far as she knew he had been allowed to take all meals at his tower, and she had supposed those meals to include tea. Why bother sitting in a room where everybody had once hated you while you were forced to play the tyrant? Was it to do with her? Oh, no, not that self-absorbed train of thought again. She decided to focus on her tea and on her conversation with Professor McGonagall. The night soon ended, and with it all thoughts of the elephant man.

***

In the mornings she woke and reported to Professor Snape's tower, and at night she busied herself both with her coursework and with half-frantic research about Harry's potion. It was small consolation that she was working with what she knew to be the most brilliant mind in the field. It was as he had said to her so long ago when he had worn a different face; with more knowledge came the facility for innovation, and even while living and breathing in her contempt for him she could acknowledge his greatness—he was systematic and thorough, and worked with an intellectual integrity that amazed her.

He was careful with her. He always stayed at a comfortable distance and said no more than he was supposed to, never again after that first attempt at calling her _Hermione._ She had no idea what he was thinking now, but she supposed that he had taken her derisive words as the one necessary signal that no more was to be said between them. There were to be no more comfortable afternoons and no more exchanges of books and opinions. It struck her at times how odd that should be, when nothing had changed but his face. And yet it was not his face but the entirety of him that had changed in her eyes, and that betrayal was still the silent rhythm accompanying their every workday.

She sometimes wished that he would say something, so that she could have the opportunity to shoot him down for it; but he said so little that she was hardly able to express the contempt that was screaming to be expressed. It was like working with a robot, so emotionless and distant did he seem. It felt like she was following a list of directions written on a chalkboard that did all the thinking for her—nothing more. She came instead to memorize the sound of him working; the sound of his stirring rod against the edges of the cauldron or the quick strokes his knife made against the chopping board.

Into this almost comfortable pattern of a life came an errand. One morning Hermione was surprised to find Madam Pomfrey inside the potions laboratory, fitting in perfectly between a houseplant and what she had come to think of as Snape's chair. Since deciding that she wanted to be a healer, Hermione had come to see Madam Pomfrey as a sort of mentor, and always looked forward to meeting with her to talk about Harry. Hermione greeted her a good morning and asked what she was doing there.

"We've got an errand to run, my girl," Madam Pomfrey said cheerfully. She gestured to a pile of baskets beside her chair.

"Are we going to gather ingredients?"

"Right you are. Professor Snape is gathering more baskets of his own. You know we can't transport them in anything that's been tampered with magically, so he asked for my help in carrying the ingredients."

"That sounds wonderful. Where are we going?"

But before Madam Pomfrey could answer Snape himself came through the door, carrying an armload of baskets. Had he been anyone else she would have offered to help, but Snape always looked so forbidding and self-sufficient that she didn't dare. There was also the fact that she sometimes felt she would rather have died than show him any bit of kindness or solicitude.

They made their way through the castle (Hermione having picked up some baskets from Pomfrey's pile) and through the gates. Pomfrey gestured to Hermione before disappearing in a _pop_. Hermione realized with quickly dawning horror that she would have to go through Side-along apparation with Professor Snape.

He looked at her awkwardly and balanced his load of baskets on one arm. He darted his eyes away from her horrified ones and held out one elbow.

"If you will, Miss Granger," he said quietly; and in a moment they were gone. Her hand was as light as possible on his arm. It struck her then that he smelled the same as Max had; and when she closed her eyes and felt his arm supporting hers, the feeling was the same, too—warm and safe.

***

The street was the most depressing thing she had ever seen. Rows and rows of old, decrepit brick houses greeted their arrival, and Snape stepped away from her as quickly as possible. Beside her, Madam Pomfrey dusted off her robes and stared pityingly at the surroundings. They began to walk towards the end of the long, horridly dirty street and into a house that was much like the others. It began to dawn on Hermione that this was Snape's home. She wanted to ask what they were doing there; she wanted to ask if she could please be excused; she wanted to say that she wanted nothing to do with his house. But her own determination to keep her mouth shut around Snape kept her from speaking.

Through the door they went, and into a tiny, gloomy sitting room. The walls were completely covered with books that Hermione had no time to ogle, because they went through the rest of the tiny house—the rest of the hovel, a part of Hermione's mind supplied—and into a small backyard.

The backyard stood in stark contrast to the rest of the dreary, lifeless neighborhood. It was green and, a part of Hermione thought, really rather beautiful—lush with overgrown magical plants. Some of the blooms were so bright that she couldn't stare at them too long. At some point the garden must have been carefully tended, as some plants were labelled in Snape's tiny handwriting. Dying and then living life on the run must have put a hamper on Snape's gardening, she thought with an edge of sarcasm. It really was a beautiful little garden, however. How odd that such an ugly man should have been responsible for so much beauty.

They worked quickly and silently, as though Madam Pomfrey had picked up on the fine tension that hummed in the air between Snape and Hermione. Hermione, apart from some sessions in Herbology, had never collected fresh ingredients for a master before, and she spared a moment to admire Snape's quick strokes with a pair of tiny nail scissors. The precision and economy of his movements, which had been quick to stir her esteem while she had been a student breathless with admiration for her teachers, were still the same.

For a moment Severus Snape excused himself and went ahead into the house, leaving the two women alone.

"What are we doing here?" Hermione finally said into the silence. "This _is_ Professor Snape's home, isn't it, Madam Pomfrey?"

"It is," was the whispered response. "He's offered the castle the use of his own ingredients in looking for a cure for Mr Potter."

"But why does it seem we're taking them all? We've virtually taken every useful blossom! Most of the plants are basically bald!"

Madam Pomfrey looked at her oddly then.

"It only makes sense," she said. "Severus won't have any need of them. He won't have any need of the house, either."

Hermione supposed this to mean that Snape would continue to live in the castle and parasitize off Hogwarts' resources for the near future. She shook her head, and shut her mouth as the figure of Snape approached from inside the house. The three of them left soon afterward, and once again went through Snape's tiny hallways and gloomy, book-lined parlor.

As much as the garden had been beautiful, so the house had been ugly and unwelcoming. It was perhaps the most accurate reflection of its master, Hermione thought.

***

They arrived at the castle and Hermione was glad to shake off the lifeless gloom that seemed to permeate the atmosphere at Spinner's End, Cokeworth. To her surprise, Snape appeared determined to want to do the inventory and storage for all of the blooms they had gathered, and Hermione was given an unexpected day off. It was to be one of the last of such days, as Snape then appeared to throw himself with gusto into the task of finding a cure for Harry; Hermione could barely keep up, and began to wish for a Time Turner so she could complete her coursework and catch up on her sleep.

Severus Snape might have been a terrible human being, but Severus Snape as a potions master was a wonder to behold. Hermione, though wrapped up in her silent disdain for him, readily acknowledged to herself that she learned more in the next month than she ever had under Slughorn. She kept her head down and worked silently; and her life was filled with silent mornings and afternoons, and visits to Harry, and more learning than she had ever anticipated.

And at night, Hermione tried to sleep; but her sleep was ever interrupted by a dream—a dream that was more of a memory. She replayed over and over again the moment when she had first openly shown her disdain for Professor Snape. "That will do," she had said. She had, for but a moment, watched the breath leave his lungs and the light leave his eyes. She had seen that before, once. It was when he had died.


	5. Chapter 5

In the next weeks they made progress—but nowhere near as fast as Hermione preferred. Any hope she had had of discovering a quick miracle for Harry snuffed itself out, and she began to worry in a way that she hadn't worried before. It had initially given her some sense of purpose, of agency, to be part of the solution for Harry's illness, but seeing how clueless their elders were at this late stage made her stomach turn.

Perhaps not all elders, however, and perhaps not entirely clueless. It was here that Snape showed himself a true scientist, and several times more brilliant than even she had anticipated. It was as though he had an internal algorithm that allowed him to make intelligent choices about what came next, and to keep working despite disappointment.

What was it that he had said to her as Max—that a facility for innovation was a product of deeper knowledge and familiarity of the field? She could hardly admit to herself that there were times, especially when the hour was late and she was tired, that she longed to sit in front of the fire in the corner of the room and just talk to him about her thoughts, to pick his brain. He was always ten paces ahead of whatever she was thinking and her ideas would have been unhelpful, but she would have liked it all the same.

It was to her own surprise that her own anger at him began to fizzle out until it had become no more than an occasional stab of strong feeling. Perhaps it helped that Severus Snape himself appeared to be doing his best to stay out of the way of her ire. In doing this he was in no way conspicuous, in the manner of teenagers giving each other the cold shoulder; his silence to her was so subtle and so respectful that Hermione was certain none of the other teachers had noticed that she and he never spoke unless necessary.

_She_ noticed, however. He never met her eyes, even when he was speaking to her, preferring to keep his gaze on their diagrams or on brewing. And yet he spoke with ease and intelligence to his colleagues over tea or on the grounds, if they happened to meet. Occasionally one of the professors would stop by at the laboratory to consult on some small matter of castle repairs and wards, and Hermione began to realize that Severus was appreciated, even liked, by his colleagues. Even more surprising, he appeared to care for them, too, asking quietly about their families and handing them potions for back pains or headaches. And when they left and he turned to her again, his face lost their warmth and animation, and he spoke no more.

Hermione turned in her bed and closed her eyes. Despite herself, his selective silence—which was of her own creation—had begun to chafe.

***

Many of the other castle-dwellers were in a similar state of frustration, not over Harry but over the fact that the castle repairs were taking longer than Professor Flitwick had anticipated. The physical structure of the castle and its seven stories had been restored mostly to normal, but the wards that had been destroyed took more power and more recovery time than the professors could easily tolerate. The castle had, after all, been built by four extremely powerful wizard-founders at the height of their power. Hermione tried to help, despite her own exhaustion, and it was when she was working on one of the one hundred and forty-two staircases that she realized something. The staircases, some of which had stubbornly refused to move to their previous routes and remained suspended in nonsensical patterns, had resumed their previous activities, and as she approached them, puzzled, she began to feel a stir of familiar magic. When her hand came near to a staircase she felt it: the thrum of it and the sheer power.

Hardly thinking about what she was doing, she burst into the laboratory where Snape remained, working, even though it was late afternoon. The wards admitted her as they always did, and she was right: it was the same magic as she had felt on the staircases. The sky was darkening outside and the fauna in the enchanted window had begun to settle into sleep. In Snape's surprise he forgot to keep his eyes off her; he was standing on a stool to reach for a bottle on a high shelf.

"What do you think you're doing?" she seethed. She hadn't spoken to him this informally since his return.

He paused before answering, letting himself down from the stool. "I am not entirely sure what you mean," he said softly. He had remembered himself and had turned his eyes away from her. _Look at me._ He had said those words to Harry once upon a time and she thought them now, angry and frustrated.

"You know that you're supposed to be directing all your energies into a cure for Harry," she spat accusingly. "Then how was it that I felt your magic on the staircases? You've clearly been pouring time and magic into repairing the castle. How could you? Does Harry's life matter so little to you?"

Even as she said the words she knew the accusation to be unfair. He could have said any number of words about how he had spent many years of his adult life trying to keep Harry safe, but it was a testament to the kind of the person he had become with her that he said nothing, sparing her feelings. His eyes darted to hers quickly before turning away again. He set himself to tidying the chopping boards and knives on their prep table, his hands busy.

"It matters a great deal," was all he said.

"Then why? Harry is—Harry is—" and she could not say it. She turned away from him as well and faced the window. She would not cry in front of him, this Philistine who would rather wave his wand to bend a few staircases to his will, rather than save a dying Harry, surely the most important boy in the world. For surely despite the calm that she and the others projected, surely he was dying. She had been helping out at the castle because of her gratitude to Professor McGonagall for taking her in, but she had been doing so with the assumption that, in the background, Snape was doing all that he could, with the singular dedication that he was known for. Unknown to herself, she had begun to rely on him, to lean on his brilliance and single-mindedness, to save her friend.

So this was why he was so tired. Must he always betray her? She imagined him sneaking away at night, feeling around with his magic, looking for the areas that needed his power, speaking to the stones in the castle that still recognized him, in some ways, as a Headmaster. It could have been heroic in any other context; in the present one it felt only like a betrayal.

She saw his reflection move in the windowpane, as though he had taken one step toward her, then restrained himself. She stiffened, willing herself not to be hysterical, not to cry.

"What would you have me do, Miss Granger?" Miss Granger again, Miss Granger always, never Hermione. His voice was resigned. "Surely it is not difficult for you to imagine that I may feel responsible for so much of the damage. Hogwarts has been my home for decades as well, and it was my own actions that reduced it to so much rubble—"

"Stop!" She could hear no more. Grief gave way to anger again, and she turned to him. It was a good thing that this time, his eyes met hers and he kept her gaze, or else she would have hexed him for not looking at her. He truly did look exhausted, and thinner than when he had first come to the castle. Nothing like the Max of old, with his improving health and good humor. Snape looked like a man who had no consolations.

She approached him, close enough to jab a finger into his chest if she had wanted; she resisted the impulse. "If you value your life," she whispered so as to avoid shouting, "if you value anything at all, you will take a sleeping potion this instant, and you will sleep for seven hours. And you will continue to sleep for that amount of time every night. And you will work on Harry's cure, and Harry alone, or else I'll—I'll—"

As she floundered, he interrupted gently. "I understand." And he looked her full in the eye as she said it, which made her believe him, before he turned away and resumed his study of the window. She nodded and she was almost satisfied, but before she made it to the door a sudden impulse seized her—again those stabs of strong emotion—and she bee-lined back to him, drawing so close as to back him into a work table, his eyes guarded.

"I will watch you do it," she said evenly. "In this regard you will not betray me. I will watch you drink the potion and I will watch as you sleep. I will not let you shirk your responsibility to Harry. I will not watch idly as he dies. He needs the best of you right now—the best of your energy and your magic—and I will not watch you squander it on things that can wait." In doing this and in referring to a betrayal she had said too much, but she could hardly care. It hardly mattered that she was a silly goose of a girl trying to intimidate a man twice her age and several times more powerful than she was. Could their recent closeness still hold some sway over him? Could she persuade him to do what she was certain was the right thing?

She needn't have worried, because he acquiesced to everything. He rang for a house-elf to bring in some sandwiches, as he was wont to do when some of their sessions ran late, and she watched him eat as well, sitting in front of the fire. And when he moved for a cup of coffee as was his custom, in a fit of brazenness she banished the cup to the fire. She would watch him get rest as though her life depended on it, and she would make sure she was taken seriously. He met her eyes and his expression was unreadable; he lowered his hand and reached for a goblet of water instead. In the unexpectedly intimate silence it was so easy to remember what those eyes had looked like when they looked at her with longing.

It happened that Snape's quarters were a short distance from the laboratory. She followed him there, low heels clattering on the floor, and watched as he prepared for sleep, saying nothing, her arms crossed in front of her chest; she was not always looking at him, because that would have been even more awkward, but she made sure he had secured the correct potion. In the end he was under the covers, sitting up, still in his shirtsleeves but at least with his boots discarded in the corner. She would not force him into a nightshirt and she suspected that he didn't change because to be more vulnerable in front of her would have been unacceptable.

She had taken a spot not so very near the bed as to suffocate him, but close enough to watch and to be near the fire; a comfortable armchair had been conjured for her by one of the elves, and it stood out in this spartan room. It looked even more bereft of personality than his house at Spinner's End, as though he had been too busy to mark the room with his belongings; a robe hung on a chair, and some notes lay scattered on some tables, but that was all. She sat stiffly on the chair, and his eyes darted to her one more time before he opened the bottle of sleeping potion and downed the contents in one gulp. The bottle made a dull sound on the nighttable as he replaced it, and then there was silence because his head had fallen back, and he was asleep.

She hadn't been lying when she said that she would watch him. He was known to be a very stubborn man, and would have worked himself sick if he had felt the need to. In the silence broken only by his soft snores—sounding similar to how Max had sounded when at rest—she was able to see more calmly that she had been overly harsh with him. If she had been speaking to a Professor Snape of a different time she would have by now been expelled from his rooms—possibly also hanging from midair and wandless, she thought with a sudden smile. But he was nothing like that now.

What he had said about feeling responsible for the castle's ruination stung her in ways she couldn't describe. She remembered how she had felt when Max had approached her in Grimmauld Place's library, explaining that he had lived a life limited not by one but two wars. She realized that now that he was alive and freed from both wars, he could not stretch out his arms and grab at whatever possibilities remained for a single, talented man in his forties, because he was determined to stay and make amends.

It struck her for a frightening moment that he did not have to be in Hogwarts if he didn't want to be. Strictly speaking he owed nothing to the castle and to the cause that had taken his life, that had forced him to murder a man he had possibly loved almost as a father. To say that she had spoken harshly just now was an understatement; she had spoken of his responsibility to Harry, but in reality it was she and Harry who owed him. The possibility of his reneging on the offer to work on a cure was too horrific to contemplate.

In her musings she had taken a more comfortable position on the chair, curling up a little and stretching her cold, stockinged feet towards the fire. She dared to look at him again on the bed and noticed a pile of papers, bound by a small clip, on his night table. From afar it seemed covered in his handwriting. She stood and came closer, peered surreptitiously at his face. Surely the sleeping potion would hold? And surely it would not be so very wrong to look at the notes if they pertained to Harry's cure. She took the sheaf of papers with her, reading them by the light of the fire.

The handwriting that had lacerated her for years, dotting her school reports, was the same, but instead of inspiring hurt and revulsion it now helped her to realize just how little she knew. How little she knew of the field and of his talent, but also how little she knew of his dedication. For surely these were nights and days of work, compressed into paragraphs and equations in his tiny spiderlike hand.

He had wandered beyond his own knowledge and consulted journal editors, had contacted masters from abroad; their input seemed worthy but ultimately unhelpful. There was one whole section dedicated to dark spells that could be contributing to the pathology or serving as its initial trigger, and wonderings whether an interaction of spell and potion would be needed. She read in awe as he slept. And for the first time, she felt truly sorry for her silence, for her determination to avoid him, for he could have spoken to her about all of these.

He grunted softly and turned in his sleep; in a sudden and unexpected moment of tenderness, she flicked a finger so that his blanket would cover him more fully; a softer, kinder mimic of how she had sent his cup of coffee to the fire earlier.

One thing caught her attention as she read. In some pages there were small illustrations, sometimes of ingredients, sometimes of diagrams, but this one presumably had nothing to do with Harry's cure. It was a small doodle of a pair of eyes, surprisingly lifelike. They were bright, and somehow feminine, and she wondered suddenly if they were her own. She couldn't say, however, and pressed on, until on the last page of his notes she saw his illustration of a flowering branch of a familiar plant—the variant of _Atropa belladona_ that she had gifted to him.

In one moment all of her calm and tenderness fled, and she dropped the notes to the floor, as though they had scalded her.

***

It was fortunate that there was good news to be had the next day, because Hermione was not quite sure how to face Snape after she had fled his rooms the night before. Some of the familiar anger had returned and bubbled merrily beneath the surface, warring with the confusion that yesterday's ponderings had produced. She was coming to terms with the fact that she could simultaneously hate him and feel sorry for him. She had wondered how to conduct herself once she came to the laboratory at her usual time. Fortunately she was saved from floundering; standing outside the room she heard soft voices from within, and found Poppy Pomfrey sitting at a lab bench, incogrously drinking tea from the same table where Snape was heating up a cauldron.

"Ah, good," Poppy said when she caught sight of Hermione. She downed the rest of her tea and gestured for Hermione to sit next to her. "I've been waiting for you, my girl. Arthur was at the infirmary early this morning and he was sorry to miss you but he had to return to the Ministry. I've got good news for you; they've caught the little hooligan who cast the curse on Harry."

Despite herself, Hermione's face broke into a wide smile. Poppy returned it quickly before continuing. Severus avoided both of their eyes.

"They didn't tell us right away because the caster is underage—I didn't get the details, but it's possible he might be related to a Death-Eater. They had to accomplish a massive amount of paperwork before they were allowed to administer Veritaserum to force the truth out of that child." She darted a glance at Snape and cleared her throat. "The curse is a darker, unexpectedly complex variant of the _Sectusempra_ , which not only creates the initial damage but perpetuates the injury, and the curse-breakers are coming by today to dismantle the base of the spell. I've been talking to Severus and it seems that your current goal is to heal the existing tissue damage and reverse the inflammatory response state. Once the curse-breakers are done the curse won't be there to stop the healing."

Before she could say anything Poppy held up a hand and said, "Don't get your hopes too high yet, my dear. You'll have your work cut out for you. The damage is very extensive, and you and Professor Snape will have to create something that interacts positively with the lingering magic. But at least it's a start."

She couldn't help it. She would have liked to remain stoic in front of Snape, who had turned off the fire of his cauldron and was now gazing at the enchanted window, and she couldn't begin to guess at his thoughts. Her own were a mess, but the overmastering emotion was one of relief that some true progress had been made; she turned away from the both of her superiors before they could see her eyes water. It mattered little that it was one of Snape's spells that had inspired the curse, which possibly explained his silence and the way he would not look at either of them. It was enough that a discovery had been made; it was enough that the curse-breakers would come. It was enough for now.

She felt an arm come around her and wondered for one wild, fleeting moment if it is was Snape, and unthinkingly she half turned into the warmth and expected Max's sandalwood smell; but it turned out to be Poppy, and it was comfort all the same. Hermione hugged her and hoped that Snape couldn't see how her shoulders were shaking.

"There, there," Poppy said into the silence. Hermione closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow down so she could speak; she felt acutely embarrassed, and felt that she ought to explain in some way her overreaction.

"I love him," she whispered finally, thinking of the boy in the hospital wing. "I know that I have many faults, but I hope that when it comes to caring for Harry, I may not be faulted for anything. I've cared for him since we were children. I love him. He needs me, needs us, because we're all he has. Thank you for this."

Across the room, Snape turned so that his back was to the both of them.

***

It ought to go without saying that Hermione threw herself with renewed vigor into her experiments with Snape. Since Horace had yet to assign her any new theoretical coursework, busy as he was with castle work, Hermione did not prompt him, instead taking time in the evenings to do research independently in the library. Snape could take care of the parts of the potion that would cure tissue damage, as Poppy had said, since he was a proficient brewer of healing potions; Hermione hoped that she could find something, anything at all, to help them create something that would interact, possibly neutralize, any lingering magic from the malicious spell.

She also noted with satisfaction that Snape appeared much more well-rested, and the dark circles under his eyes were such that he no longer looked like he had been punched in the face. In observing him discreetly across the lab benches she did note that he seemed to still be moving stiffly, and appeared to pause carefully before sitting down. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her how his leg was doing, since it was only improving back when they had been on intimate terms; but she could not say anything now, and told herself that she no longer cared. Her focus was on Harry, she told herself.

In the middle of all of this, Snape made a request. It was an odd one, all things considered, since they seemed close to the end already and were already preparing draft batches of the potion base, needing only additional ingredients to refine it. She was in the middle of stirring the first batch, carefully counting twelve clockwise, then counterclockwise. Snape stopped in front of her bench, and let her finish counting before he cleared his throat. She looked up at him, concealing her annoyance.

"Miss Granger," he said haltingly. "I find that I must request you to watch the potions for one hour and a half at a time." Before she could say anything he added hastily, "It does not have to be today, but I would appreciate it if we could begin tomorrow. I have an errand that I must attend to for some time between ten to eleven thirty in the morning, tomorrow and the days after that. I would be most grateful."

He fell silent and she nodded. Annoyance bloomed anew and she wondered what else he could be doing that was more important than Harry, but she said nothing, because she _was_ perfectly capable of watching the four batches of base potions that they planned to brew daily. He had made the request stiffly, reluctantly, and she was determined not to comment.

In the following days, while watching the potions brew, she busied herself with the tiny laboratory mice that they kept in one corner of the room. Testing on animals was not routine in Potions laboratories but Hermione would rather have died than feed her friend a potion that had not been tested for safety on an animal model, as she had insisted when she and Snape first began working. She had grown rather fond of the mice, and was optimistic that Harry's Potion (as she had taken to calling it in her mind) would be safe both for them and for her friend.

She thought often of something Snape had told them when they were students, while he was describing the dark arts. "Fighting them," he had said, "is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible." She found it to be true now more than ever. She came to visit Harry as she did every night, and found him improved, because the base of the spell had been broken; but the magic had dwelled in his body for a long time now and in some ways had taken root. It would not be so easy to cure him after all.

She longed to bring him outside to get some fresh air at the Quidditch Pitch, but feared that he was too weak. He had been reading books instead; she saw on his table a copy of the Elephant Man's biography that had been circulating among the staff. As a treat Hermione spontaneously brought him one of the mice from the lab. She had grown fond of one in particular, one she called Algernon; she could tell him from the rest because he had slightly larger front teeth than the rest of his litter, and a tail that seemed to curl.

Harry peered at the mouse between his fingers. "He does seem a little bit like you," he teased. Hermione pinched his arm and they laughed; the sound was lightheaded, and she had missed it.

"I don't have those teeth now, thanks to Malfoy," she said, rubbing the soft fur with the pad of her finger.

Harry grinned. "I see no difference," he said in a low, haughty voice, and unthinkingly she laughed, then fell silent, for she hadn't thought of the incident in a long time.

Years ago she and the boys had gotten in a fight with the Slytherins, and Malfoy's hex had made her teeth grow enormously; by the time she had reached the Hospital Wing, they had grown down to her chest. Snape, the teacher—horrid Snape, vicious Snape, cruel and unreasonable Snape—had looked at her and said coldly, "I see no difference." Had she been so ugly before? She had had large front teeth in childhood and had often been made fun of for it. It had stung her unexpectedly at the time; she had done her best until that point not to get rattled by the insults thrown at her by her peers, but hearing it from a teacher, and one she had respected, had stung more than she could admit.

She had hoped, naively, that the adults—the people worth respecting, the people who had grown past childhood rivalries and petty squabbles—could see what really mattered. She had hoped that her teachers could look past her blood status and her external flaws to see her eagerness, her worthiness and ability, her good intentions. In the years that followed that insult would be erased from her memory, a tiny drop in the ocean of offences and crimes that was the wizarding war, but being with Harry now brought it out the sting anew, and she tried to smile while she distractedly petted the tiny mouse. She couldn't meet Harry's eyes.

For a moment she wished for revenge. She wished that she could say something equally cutting to Snape now, but she couldn't use _those_ words, because when he came back not looking like the Max she had wanted and longed for, she did see a difference. And perhaps that was enough; perhaps her words, ruthlessly spoken—"That will do," she had said—were the equivalent.

***

As work at the castle began to dwindle into the very last of the repairs, Horace Slughorn spent more and more time at the laboratory with the two of them, content to talk about administrative affairs or plans for the curriculum, while his two companions remained mostly silent. Snape continued to disappear at ten in the morning and was back at 11:30 AM sharp daily, and Hermione and Horace spent the interval talking about revisions to the curricula she had compiled. He now had her revising the ones for the upper years as well, which simultaneously flattered and harried her, since she now felt that she was being stretched quite thin.

On one such morning she looked up from her cauldron and realized that she had left her notes at Harry's bedside after she had visited him the night before. The thought filled her with alarm, because she had wanted him to remain clueless about their progress; to have no idea about the uncertainty and experimentation. She made her apologies to Horace and begged him to stay to watch the potions—no stirring, no incantations, just watching—before fleeing to the hospital wing, hoping Harry hadn't yet seen her notebook.

When she opened the door to the infirmary she stopped dead in her tracks, and all thoughts of Harry's bedside flew from her mind. Through a slit in the curtains she could see the bulky form of Poppy Pomfrey standing beside one of the beds near the door, and to her horror she heard her voice mixing with Snape's. Her heartbeat in her ears and the very worst scenarios coming to mind, she didn't think twice before snapping the curtain open.

Both Snape and Poppy turned to look at her, aghast. She calmed down the moment she realized that Snape wasn't in any immediate danger, but it was sinking in that her actions had been thoughtless, even foolish; how could she explain her presence here now, and her rudeness on interrupting them abruptly? How could she explain that she had feared for Snape?

Her eyes quickly took stock of him, and she was unable to stop a gasp of horror. Snape lay prone on the bed, his head turned to the side to look at her and Poppy, and his exposed back was straight out of her nightmares. It was riddled with scars, so much more than hers and Harry's and Ron's combined, but the horrific thing was the gaping wounds, their edges overturned, and she knew that they must have been there for a long time now, weeks at least, probably months. They had the look of wounds that had been dressed very badly, some of which had become infected, some eating into the muscle beneath them. She stared at him speechless, and she saw something in his eyes of that old fear. It looked so much like the fear that gripped him the moment their lips had parted in that dark Grimmauld Place room, a fear of her abhorrence and revulsion that she understood only much later. It was only there for a moment, for he kept his face expressionless afterwards, and let Poppy do the talking.

"If you don't mind, my dear, I'll tend to you in a moment. It's just best if I finish dressing these first, Severus always insists that he has to be done by half past eleven."

Snape averted his eyes. A flick of the mediwitch's fingers later the curtain closed before Hermione's horrified face. She understood now that he had been living with this for a long time before coming for help, probably trying and failing to dress these wounds properly because of their location, but also his sheer refusal to take care of himself. And she had berated him so badly for not caring for Harry! How the wounds must have hurt. She remembered now how she had noticed seeing him move so stiffly, even during their last days at Grimmauld.

For a moment she had the impulse to jerk open the curtains again, to help, to dress the wounds with a tenderness she had reserved only for Harry, a silent apology for every stinging word. The impulse lasted only a moment and she held it at bay; pride triumphed, and with it the certainty that her attention would be unwelcome. She tried not to think about the way Snape had looked at her before averting his gaze, as though she could have been disgusted by what she had seen; for a moment he had looked as though he couldn't bear to see her disgust, to have her see him as less than human.

She found Harry asleep and found her notebook; and from this stomach-turning interlude she went back to her life, to the strained formality of her working relationship with Snape, who said nothing about what she had seen, but continued to disappear in the mornings. And at night her dreams of his deadened expression changed to ones of his strong arms, the curve of his scapulae and the breadth of his shoulders; she dreamt that instead of Poppy's, his arms had come to enclose her, and she dreamed that his back was smooth and healed under her fingertips.


	6. Chapter 6

Had their positions been reversed—had Hermione been vulnerably laid out before him—she would have wanted some excuse to run away, some excuse not to meet each other. She had done much the same thing when he approached her at the Burrow and she had left before he could even open his mouth, as he prepared to say things that she would never let herself hear. But maybe this was the difference between the child that she was and the grown-up that he'd become: if Snape felt anything at all he didn't show it. The next day he was himself—steady, focused and quiet—and he continued to ask her to watch the potions for an hour and a half every morning, and she kept silent, unable to quite meet him in the eye.

It crossed her mind that perhaps her opinion had lost its value to him. Surely a spurned lover in the same situation would not have been so composed—would have been a little more wretched-but there he was, his eyes betraying nothing. The idea was not a pleasant prospect.

This was not the only thing that was unpleasant. She had rejoiced when the curse-breakers dismantled the Curse that was keeping Harry from healing; euphoria soon gave way to disappointment when the first serious attempt to brew and bottle a cure produced no result. It had elicited some muscle healing in Algernon and his ilk but, when consumed by Harry, might as well have been a chocolate frog, for all the effect it produced. Reviewing Harry's chart and his vital signs in Snape's laboratory, she could not help but feel dejected.

Snape, who was reading over her shoulder (at a very professional distance), seemed to feel it as well; he sank into one of the benches with a little more force than she was accustomed to seeing, and she stole a glance at him. He was slumped over one of the tables, digging the heel of his hand into the angle between nose and forehead, as though worrying away at a burgeoning headache. She had seen Max do the same and was stuck once again by how her sight and her memory could play up the similarities.

She thought that a failed potion must have been disappointing to him, too, since he was so used to success. Even as a teenager he had experimented, and had been able to bend magic and potions to do what he wanted; the most "experimental" potion she'd ever created was a potion that turned her into half-human, half cat. His words to her on innovation, spoken a lifetime ago in Grimmauld place, rang in her ears again, but this time it was with Professor Snape's voice rather than Max's.

"Has this happened to you often?" a voice said into the room. It took her a moment to place the voice as her own. Surprised at herself, she pursed her lips and looked away from him, quickly enough that she caught a glance of a magical doe's tail before it exited the frame of Snape's enchanted window.

If he was surprised at her outburst he said nothing to indicate it. "Do you mean failure?"

"Yes."

"Then, yes. Even more often when it comes to things that matter most." He cleared his throat, as though embarrassed. "That is to say—"

"Did you always do experimentation alone?" She couldn't seem to stop talking.

"No." He said nothing more, which prompted her to ask, "With whom?"

She continued to watch the scenery in the stained glass window. Behind her she could hear him tidying up, the bottles clinking against one another, the sound of his wandless _Evanesco_ clearing up the detritus. Even in the colored glass she could see a trace of his shadow.

"I spent some time in my childhood experimenting with potions with Lily Evans," he said finally, before correcting himself. "That is, Lily Potter." The mistake was not lost on her; to him she hadn't been Lily, wife of James and mother of Harry, but a childhood friend, perfect and bright, not unlike Ginny. She thought of the photographs of Harry's mother, who had had straight, obedient hair and a bee-stung mouth, with Harry's startling eyes. She thought of Snape, who had loved the same woman for decades. A leaden weight seemed to settle in Hermione's stomach. "We created a few minor potions. I'm sure you must have seen them in the book Mr. Potter carried around with him the year before last."

"As an adult, though," she said quickly before he could say anything more. "As an adult, did you ever do this with someone else?" She didn't know what she was asking anymore.

"No," he said. "I've only ever been alone." He vanished the rest of the mess. It was the most they had said to each other in so long a time, and with her back to him, she toyed with the idea of pretending in the privacy of her mind that he was Max again, recapturing some part of this wonderful thing she had lost. She discarded the idea immediately; she did not want to pretend. The moment she opened her mouth to keep him talking, the moment she turned to him, he'd already gathered his robes around himself. The bottles were in the sink, the fires extinguished, and he made his excuses and left the room, leaving her suddenly bereft. She saw with the corner of her eye that the silver doe in the stained glass window made its appearance, and vanished just as quickly.

***

She wasn't sure if she expected anything to change. He had made it clear that he would accommodate her wishes in abandoning any semblance of familiarity; he only answered when she asked, and would hardly do more. She still couldn't fight the feeling of disappointment when the next day he didn't meet her eyes and conducted their work in silence as though nothing had changed. She berated herself silently.

Today the work was the mind-numbing reconstruction of the base of their last failure, in the hopes that a result could be obtained with a few modifications. Lost in thought, she caught sight of herself in one of the windows and touched her hair self-consciously, then hated herself for it even more. The silence had become difficult to endure and she wished for something, anything—for music, for a visitor.

As though in answer to her silent prayers a tap came at the window. Wonderingly she opened it and into the room swooped an eagle owl. It didn't spare her a glance and went straight to Snape, who welcomed it in the middle of the room; it flew in circles a few times, sending a couple of their notes fluttering to the floor, before settling on Snape's shoulder.

A scroll was deposited into Snape's hand. She watched his long and clever fingers, so unlike her own, as they opened the package, and then something wonderful happened. He smiled, and the sight was so arresting and startling that she couldn't for the life of her look away.

It was Max and it wasn't; the expression was the same. She recognized the mind and the soul behind the different architecture of bone and muscle. He had looked at her like that before, when he had taken her gingerly into his arms and swayed an awkward but tender waltz with her in Grimmauld's library; he had looked at her like that when she had gifted him with her potted flower, had looked at her like that in the split second before he'd grasped her upper arms and kissed her. But he could spare no such lovely smiles for her now, reserving them for packages from strangers, for colleagues, for everyone except her. _Look at me_ , she thought, _look at me!_ Her thoughts were so loud that she wondered if he, the legilimens, could hear them.

His smile faltered when he raised his eyes to hers. "It's good news," he said. "I've been waiting for one of my colleagues from the continent to send me this, and you might like to see it." So as to avoid touching her fingers he put the parchment on the table nearest to him, and she snatched it up, heartbeat in her ears—whether from excitement or something else entirely, she didn't know.

The scroll was from a herbologist, and she knew this because she had frequently heard the herbologist's name from Neville. The letter began with cordial greetings and then, to Hermione's surprise, detailed the formula for a healing potion which used one specific ingredient: a particular variant of _Atropa belladonna._ The variant, in fact, which she had seen in Snape's notes; the variant she had gifted him with a lifetime ago.

He continued talking as she read. "I've been waiting for them to send me a sample of their work with the plant, which is often toxic when used in most healing potions. Only if its toxicity can be neutralized can we take advantage of its propensity for healing muscle. This is their attempt at a neutralizing base and, as you may have gathered, it seems to have been successful in their animal trials." He was looking at her; she dared to lift her eyes to meet his, and he looked away quickly, speaking to some point above her left shoulder. "I thought that we might, perhaps, shelve our current formula and start from here."

He moved away from her, and on looking at his back she thought suddenly of wound-healing; thought of the map of scars she had seen under his clothing, and she wondered if he would let her help him. But of course there was Harry, Harry first and most important, and so they worked.

She kept the progress from Harry later that night—Harry who puzzled her by not just finishing the biography of the Elephant Man, but by asking for a book of the man's poems. It was a short volume, with well-meaning but not particularly outstanding poetry, but Harry seemed to like it, and was puzzled when she focused so much on the form rather than on the feeling. She suspected that, cooped up in the infirmary, he must have become a little morose, and she owled Ginny that night to organize a visit, even as she dreaded being in the same room with beautiful freckled skin and shiny hair. She kept her thoughts of her envy to herself, because for some reason she couldn't banish them as she had, growing up, become accustomed to doing.

***

It turned out that she would miss Ginny's visit anyway. Snape seemed not to have slept at all the evening before; the circles under his eyes were more prominent than ever, but she kept herself from berating him, because she recognized the nervous excitement of the academic facing a final solution.

She opened her mouth but whatever she had been planning on articulating—worry, gratitude, regret—Snape beat her to it by apologizing for taking up her evening. He had made more progress overnight than they had in months, and carefully outlined a formula which would require nonstop brewing and potion-watching for eighteen hours. It would take them from today until the next morning.

"I hope this is suitable," he said, not quite looking at her, and she nodded, torn between excitement and trepidation. It wasn't the longest she had stayed up to watch a potion, but she dreaded the prospect of eighteen hours of silence with Snape. She sent a _patronus_ to Harry, conscious of the way Snape's eyes followed the silver otter as it left the room to make her apologies to her friends. Snape in turn ordered them sandwiches and coffee which were set up at the corner of the room. A whiff of the tea-pot betrayed a small, touching courtesy—that he had ordered the jasmine tea she favored.

She watched him from the corner of her eye as well, with an awareness that was now bereft of animosity. If this was to be the last of such evenings, she thought, what then?

By the time the sun set outside the enchanted windows, she had tired, and without meaning to, fell asleep, head pillowed on her arms, with dreams of does and otters. When she woke up, a bottle filled with golden fluid was on the desk in front of her, and she had been covered with a blanket. Snape was nowhere to be found.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story ends here, but a sequel will follow. I don't like sad endings, myself. 
> 
> I'm not interested in explaining why I chose to make both Severus and Hermione very flawed characters here. There are tens of thousands of fic where you'll find Hermione--a teenager--forgiving and sweet-tempered and perfect. I'm not interested in that two-dimensional characterization anymore, and readers are welcome to look for it elsewhere.

When Hermione woke up, she noticed two things immediately: Snape's absence, and the final product of their labors sitting on the counter. He must have completed and bottled it while she slept. Why hadn't he woken her? It was morning, and the potion all but sparkled in the sunlight through the windows. It was the perfect golden shade they had been expecting and for which they had hoped. Her breath seized in her throat and she all but lunged at the potion, cradling its nondescript bottle in her fingers.

There was not a moment to lose. Where was Snape? Oh, but Harry first, Harry foremost—and she dashed to the hospital wing.

There she saw Harry, the ashen pallor of the last few months vanished. She knew then that Snape must have administered the first of seven doses, and Harry's smile confirmed the fact. Joy and relief consumed her, the final lifting of a burden which had weighed down her heart like a stone for so long. She stretched her hand out, ruffling Harry's hair, hardly daring to hope. He opened one eye and smiled at her, and moved to sit up and stretch. She searched him for signs of fatigue or pain, and found none; and his eyes were just as they had always been—bright, green, alert. All was well.

Letters were owled, felicitations were given, and through it all Hermione laughed and deflected congratulations, and weeped occasionally with relief. It was the very busiest day the castle had seen in a while.

And so she could not perhaps be blamed for not realizing that something was terribly wrong.

***

Despite herself, Hermione was disappointed not to see the Professor at lunchtime. To wander into his laboratory when their project was already finished would have been too much, would have been to throw herself in his way, betraying her interest. She waited for him at the hospital wing, one eye at the door, hoping he would look in on their patient, but she learned later that he had given the task of monitoring Harry's response to Madame Pomfrey. The next six doses of the potion would be Hermione's to administer.

She was equally disappointed at lunch in the Great Hall, shooting covert glances at the High Table where she had hoped he might come, a concession to the general spirit of gaiety that had overtaken the staff. But there was only the professors, speaking jovially through mouthfuls of celebratory food. The Elves, with their fondness for Harry, had made a feast. Buoyed by relief as she was, Hermione had little appetite. There was no trace of Snape and, she noticed, of the Headmistress.

It was late afternoon when she decided that she would go to see Snape—later. First, she planned to see the Headmistress to discuss Harry's transfer. She climbed the steps to the third floor, reflecting on the number of times she had climbed up to the Headmaster's office, although never before with such happy intentions. Madame Pomfrey had discussed with her and Harry the possibility of continuing Harry's convalescence at the Weasleys or at Grimmauld Place, where he was sure to be among friends and would surely have benefited from a change in scenery. She spoke of plans to discharge him after five days. Eager to leave the castle which had held him for months, Harry bargained the days down to three.

Ginny was over the moon and insisted on both Harry and Hermione staying at the Burrow, and the two sweethearts had been chatting happily through the Floo when Hermione excused herself to see Professor McGonagall. Professor Slughorn had volunteered to give her a few days off as Harry recovered, though not normally one for unplanned holidays, Hermione welcomed the chance and thought the proper thing would be to give the Headmistress her notice.

"Swedish fish," she told the tower's gargoyle, wondering with equal wistfulness and amusement if the password was a nod to Professor McGonagall's predecessor. She was let upstairs soon enough, and into the office that had once housed Albus Dumbledore and the artefacts in the large room which contributed to an overall picture of grandiose, distracted whimsy.

She saw the tiny, whirring silver instruments in their glass cases first, and the Headmistress second. This was because Professor McGonagall was sitting a ways away from the enormous Headmaster's desk, in a deep chair in front of the fireplace. She didn't stand to greet Hermione, but said, a propos of nothing, "I tried to silence those knick knacks before, but the office ended up being much too quiet. You may have a seat, if you like," she added, then resumed staring into the fire, with a wan, empty smile.

Hermione noticed that she was holding a teacup, and that the sun was setting outside. A copy of the Elephant Man's biography was on a small table which held the tea things. Professor McGonagall must have been on the rotation after Harry, Hermione thought.

She took a seat as instructed, closer to the windows, puzzled but not overly bothered by the Headmistress' odd mood. The older woman had always greeted her with warmth, even affection, and there was something unusually cold about the way she didn't ask about Hermione's business directly; but then it had been a long day, and even joy can make one tired.

When the Headmistress said nothing more, Hermione began tentatively, "Professor, I've come to let you know that Professor Slughorn has offered to relieve me of my apprenticeship duties for the next week, while we're helping Harry to transition to normal life again." Or what counted for normal with Harry; soon enough he would be back in Ministry hearings and hero-worshipping Snape, she reflected wryly.

"Yes," Professor McGonagall said with a sideways glance at Hermione. "I believe congratulations are in order. Well done to you and to Professor Snape."

Hermione, who had been deflecting this comment all day, was going to say the usual platitudes of "It was a team effort" and "I was only glad to help," but she was cut off by the Headmistress saying, "A month or so ago I was not quite sure that I wanted you to work with Severus. I had my reservations, but he raised no objections, and so I allowed it to happen. I believe it all turned out well in the end."

The short speech gave Hermione pause, hinting as it did at the possibility that McGonagall knew about what had passed between her and Snape. Unsure how to respond, Hermione sipped at the tea which had appeared at her elbow. "I was grateful for the opportunity," she hazarded. "I still am. I appreciate Professor Slughorn's tutelage—" a loose word for the mind-numbing clerical work he had her doing— "but the opportunity to participate in experimentation was very valuable."

Again, a sideways glance. "Did you find your time with Severus instructive?"

"Oh, yes," she said, before blurting out, "Whatever else he is, he really is a brilliant Potions Master."

The resulting silence and the gathering of tension in the room let Hermione know that this was entirely the wrong thing to say. The sideways glance turned into one of cold fury, the kind that had never been directed at her from the Headmistress' eyes and thin, pursing lips. Hermione's mouth opened and closed while she floundered for something to save her blunder, but McGonagall would have none of it. She was sitting a few meters from Hermione but for the force of her presence, might as well have been towering over her former student's chair.

"Well then," McGonagall said in the high, clear tones of the incensed, "at least you won't have to deal with him anymore, _whatever else he is._ His duty to you is done. He has left the castle, and will never darken your doorway again, you foolish girl." This last piece of invective seemed to surprise even McGonagall, for a flash of shame seemed to flutter through her gaze, before the cold, hard mask was back and the older woman stood abruptly. She turned to the window as though looking at Hermione irritated her.

For Hermione, all thoughts of the Headmistress' displeasure fled her mind as she clung to those last words. She rose from her seat so quickly that she spilled her tea, the scalding liquid dripping from her knees, wetting her socks and trickling onto the carpet. She paid it no mind, for she was suddenly filled with a sinking fear. " _Left?"_ Her voice was too high, too panicked. "But how could he leave? Where has he gone?"

When Professor McGonagall didn't answer Hermione swore under her breath, a feat she would never have attempted in the Headmaster's office in her schooldays, and all but stumbled to the doorway, frenetic and fearful. "That _coward,"_ she whispered to herself, "that utter coward—!"

"How _dare_ you." The words cut through the air in the room before Hermione could step out the door, and they stopped her in her tracks. "How dare you stand in judgment of the man to whom you owe your friend's life. To whom we owe _all_ our lives, and the promise of a future besides. He's given this castle more years than you've been alive, and I wanted him to leave when he could—but you happened. He felt that he owed you. By god, what a life of always owing," McGonagall spat out angrily.

"I never asked—"

"Miss Granger, you never had to. Do you know what an illuminating experience it has been, to watch the folly of generations be repeated in this same castle, decades and decades apart. Before you were born I watched that boy be torn apart by a Gryffindor girl who will forgive a handsome boy and shun an ugly one. I did nothing for him then, but I'll be damned if I don't do something for him now.

"Don't you dare find him! Don't look for him, for he doesn't need to be found by someone like you. Do you think the staff have been blind to how you treat him? We knew we ought to be licking his bootstraps, all of us, and asking him for forgiveness for how we treated him that last year. He wouldn't have any of it, and all he asked was to be forgotten at first. And then a miracle—he came and asked for his laboratory back, so he could work on a potion for Mr. Potter, keeping that boy alive yet again. The castle was glad to have him, and so were we.

"When Horace asked that you be allowed to help him the staff were glad of it, and so was I, because we knew nothing; but none of us could be blind to your sullen silences and the way you looked at him like he was something clinging to the underside of your boot. You, who had always looked at him with respect. He didn't tell me—I pried the knowledge from him, bit by painful bit, starting with those pamphlets he asked for, for your sake, and ending with your meeting at the Burrow."

The grey eyes turned to look at Hermione, who still stood with her hand on the door. "He never started the project with the hopes of winning you over. He had never had any such hope. You play at compassion, and yet you've found no difficulty in convincing a man—a good man, an honorable man—that nobody could ever desire him as long as he remained himself. I grant that you may have felt betrayed by his deception—a necessary deception!—but I have often wondered if you were simply ashamed at the parts of yourself that liked him."

"I—" Hermione found her voice at last, clinging to a flimsy defense. "It wasn't him that I liked! It was the person he was pretending to be."

"He never pretended to be something else when he was with you," McGonagall interjected. "It isn't his way. You sought him out first and he responded when you asked. Only his looks and his past were different when you met him as Max, and yet you act as though he tricked you into loving him. If that is the requirement of your love—if a man of his bravery and intelligence and self-mastery requires good looks and a sparkling clean history to earn it—then I think he is better off without."

The sky was dark outside and Hermione, though conscious of the moments flying by and carrying Snape away from her, couldn't move, couldn't say anything. The older woman met her eyes and seemed suddenly to deflate, becoming more like the woman Hermione knew, before slumping back into her seat across the fire.

"I hope he lives a good and happy life," McGonagall said quietly. "I hope he finds a blind woman, even a Muggle woman, who will believe him worthy just as he is, and who will give back to him everything that you've taken. I don't blame you for not wanting him now, my girl, but you've treated him no better than the Malfoys and the Lestranges of the world have done—perhaps even worse, because at least most of them thought him an equal."

The words seemed to unfreeze Hermione's limbs. "Where is he? Where has he gone?"

The old woman passed a hand over her eyes. After a pause, she said, "You might find him at Spinner's End if you hurry. But the place where he's going is unplottable and unreachable by owl or Patronus, somewhere none of us will be allowed to find him."

Hermione ran.

Poverty, ugliness, a bad reputation borne of past mistakes. She thought of those things as she ran, her shoes slapping against the stones and her heartbeat in her ears. Had she herself become the bully in the stories? Had she, in girlish insecurity, allowed herself to act as those three things disqualified someone from being loved or wanted? He'd never forced himself upon her, with either his touch or his company. She thought of a touch-starved, eleven year old Harry, unused to embraces and pats on the back, hungry for more than food. She wondered what Harry would have become after four decades of that starving.

She ignored the whispers of the ghosts in the portraits. Down one staircase, and up the next, and into the tower which housed his lab—their lab. She thought of the potion, the perfect, blinding gold in the nondescript bottle. She thought of the way she had spoken of her love for her friend, and how, with no jealousy or selfishness, he'd worked day and night to give Harry back to her, whole and happy, and left the castle without congratulations or reward. He must have known that she would have used even her gratitude as a weapon against him, as she had used any weapon to strike out at him for months.

She thought of the words he'd used with her as Max, gentle words she'd kept close to her heart, only to think about in between sleeping and waking, about leaving him breathless with admiration; about giving her back all of her choices. I hadn't chosen him, she thought wildly. I am such a fool. She thought of gentle arms, sweet kisses, frightened eyes.

She burst into the tower. He had left; there was no denying it. The laboratory admitted her with its magic but his cauldrons and equipment were gone. The was no silver doe among the stained glass trees, and the warm, humming feeling of his magic had disappeared from the room.

She didn't know how long it took her. She had never sprinted so fast in her life. Out the castle and onto the grounds, grass and shrubbery biting into the skin of her legs, past the gates and to the nearest Apparition point. The memory of her arm in his as they had disappeared from the castle and appeared on Spinner's End. _Safe as houses._ Before she knew it she was on the darkening street, while electric lights began to illuminate the area one by one, as irrelevant to her single-minded search as distant stars. Hermione ran to the end of the street she and Madam Pomfrey had walked only weeks before, but what met her eyes when she got there was no longer Snape's house.

The shutters were closed, and the house felt dead with an aching, yawning emptiness. There was no magic. A sign saying _for lease_ , looking freshly painted, was mounted near a window. Hermione felt a crushing weight on her chest and felt herself stumble as she ran to the door; she jiggled the knob but the door was locked, as she knew it would be.

"Severus," she sobbed. " _Severus_!" but there was no response. Nearly blinded by tears she rounded the house and pushed open the fence to the backyard, where the plants gave her no answer, wilting as they were without their master's love. The door here was locked too, and stayed lock even as she beat on it with her fists.

There was no hope. Through her tears she tried to cast a Patronus but could summon no joy and the spell sputtered and failed in her hands. But how could Snape not be here? Surely she could not have missed him. He could not have left so abruptly and completely. She fought her way through the shrubbery, pinning her hopes on the window facing the backyard. She peered into a crack in the window, heart in her throat.

The books and pots and pans had disappeared, and the kitchen table was all but empty. But there was one thing left of the man who loved her, only one thing he had left for her to find—a potted flower.


End file.
